Success Stories
Fabricated Metal Products Manufacturer
Arizona
This company manufactured metal components for
industrial mining and commercial construction.
Products included dust collection systems,
environmental enclosures, traffic control and air
distribution structures, and architectural and
artistic metalwork. The company faced increasing
foreign competition from low cost competitors
primarily located in Mexico. In the two years prior
to the firm's certification as trade impacted annual
sales decreased 16% to $6.5 million and employment
decreased 8% to 60.
The company, with assistance from the University of
Southern California’s Western Trade Adjustment
Assistance Center (Western TAAC) became certified as
trade impacted by the US Dept. of Commerce, Economic
Development Administration (EDA).
Western TAAC and the company’s management developed
a strategy focusing on improving its manufacturing
technology and cost competitiveness, while
increasing sales through the repositioning of its
product lines. Over a 4 1/2 year period, Western
TAAC and the company’s management implement three
production engineering projects to improve plant
layout and production efficiency, three information
technology projects to implement an integrated
accounting/manufacturing control information system
and one marketing & sales project to assist in
developing a sales strategy.
Three years after program completion, the results
are remarkable. These projects along with other
strategy implementation led to outstanding growth
and stability for the firm. As a result, in the 8
years since the firm began working with the Trade
Adjustment Assistance for Firms program, sales
increased 148% to $16.1 million, employment
increased 192% to 175, and profitability increased
over 10 times. |
