The Persistence of Industrial Production
Persistency of Manufacturing in Muncie
The main focus of this section is to show how manufacturing jobs are now dominated by smaller companies in the local economy. Larger corporations such as BorgWarner have had to move locations with cheaper, nonunion labor. Smaller firms that have knowledge of the local economy were able to adapt to the deindustrialization that happened in Muncie. While large plants employing thousands of workers are no longer part of the local economy, smaller manufacturing companies remain.The Muncie and Delaware County Chamber of Commerce’s list of the largest local employers includes numerous manufacturers who collectively employ more than 1,700 people. [1] The following table lists the largest of these:
- MPT Muncie/ Magna Powertrain – 571
- Mursix Corporation- 300
- Maxon- A Honeywell Company- 250
- Exide Technologies- 180
- Hitachi Astemo Indiana- 175
- Mid-West Metal- 150
- Spartech- 85
Mid-West Metal Products, Inc.
The history of one of these companies, Mid-West Metal Products, shows us how manufacturing activity has continued in Muncie. The company was founded 1921. Its main function has been to manufacture an assortment of sheet metal and tubular metal products along with pet homes and supplies. The company has transformed itself from a sheet metal product company to this wider array of products. Having a full century of history behind them, Mid-West Metals is a prime example of a manufacturing company that has persisted through the process of deindustrialization in Muncie. Being a smaller firm, they were able to adapt in a variety of ways.One of the keys to success over the years has been management's ability to automate its processes. In 1975, the company installed its first minicomputer, at a cost of $30,000, to improve its administrative processes. [2] Over time, it invested in an variety of manufacturing technology including automatic wire mesh welders, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) wire benders, automatic carton sealing machines, and four robotic cells with 16 robots to improve production efficiency. [3] These technologies reduced labor costs while increasing efficiency.
The next key to success arose from the personal side of the business. Family connections served to benefit the family in a way that was not possible for larger businesses. According to E. Bruce Geelhoed’s history of the company, only 9 percent of family businesses achieve the transition from their second generation to their third. Mid-West Metal Products now has a fourth generation of the Smith family coming into the business. This accomplishment makes them part of less than 3 percent of all family businesses in the world transitioning from their third to the fourth generation.[4]
The company's flexibility also helped it to adapt to difficult circumstances. When Mid-West Metals discovered that a rival company was selling wired-rubbish cans for dog crates, the company shifted its production into that area. Seeing that the product was close to some of their own, they used their imagination to come up with a different way that those rubbish crates could be useful. As Geelhoed explained, by “exploiting this discovery, Mid-West Metal Products began to focus its manufacturing and marketing strategies toward becoming an industry leader in the market for pet containment.” [5]
These adjustments helped the company not only survive but prosper. Sales figures for the company increased from the 1960s onward, with increases in every decade. They doubled throughout the 1970s, from 2.1 million dollars in 1970 to 4.7 million in 1979. By 1989, the sales figures had grown to more than 14.7 million dollars. Unlike other industries that either went out of business or left Muncie, Mid-West Metals found its niche in the market and exploited it by developing new products. [6]
Despite its rapid growth in sales and profits during the late twentieth century, the company never hired the huge number of employees that the old manufacturing operations did. As the Muncie-Delaware County, Indiana Economic Development Alliance reports, Mid-West Metals has 150 employees today, a total that includes both production workers and administrative staff. [7] This is a far fewer than the thousands who once worked at BorgWarner or the Chevy plant. Its history demonstrates that specialized manufacturing activity has continued in Muncie, but it can no longer be the main foundation for the local economy.