Friday, November 4, 2005

Charles V. Tines / The Detroit News Rick Breault, left, is an applications engineer for Methods Machine Tools Inc., which makes automotive transmission parts.

Can these robots save Michigan jobs?

Wixom firm says its machines help keep employers from going abroad

By Nick Bunkley / The Detroit News

Charles V. Tines / The Detroit News "If we don't automate here, we're definitely going to lose the jobs," says Thomas Saur, general manager of Methods' new facility. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

WIXOM -- The high-tech behemoths sold by Methods Machine Tools Inc. let manufacturers increase production with fewer workers.

Yet the company bills its products as potential job savers.

In an era of global competition, factory workers are finding that the robots they once feared would put them out on the street might actually help preserve their jobs by keeping employers from heading overseas to cut costs. Sure, automation often means a company needs fewer workers, but these days the alternative can be far worse.

"It still keeps the shop here instead of losing it," said Thomas Saur, general manager of Methods' new facility in Wixom. "If we don't automate here, we're definitely going to lose the jobs."

The giant metal-cutting machines distributed by Methods have helped Motor City Mold reduce expenses without eliminating any of its 15 employees. With the auto industry struggling, Motor City Mold, a plastic injection mold maker in Plymouth, and other suppliers are under intense pressure to keep prices down.

"We have to automate," said Motor City Mold President Ron Vaagenes. "We have to cut out labor hours."

In the past six years, Michigan has lost 1,400 small and medium-sized manufacturing plants, most employing about 60 or 70 people, as many companies moved operations overseas, according o the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center in Plymouth.

Automation is one way that U.S. factories can compete against the low-cost labor readily available in China, India, Mexico and other countries, said the technology center's president, Mike Coast.

"If you had a 100-employee plant and there was a way to buy a piece of equipment that would allow you to keep 80 of those folks, it comes down to a business decision," Coast said.

As so many manufacturers look for ways to cut costs, Methods has seen demand for its products grow significantly, especially in the Midwest. The company recently moved its Michigan operations from a 30,000-square-foot facility in Grand Rapids to a new 50,000-square-foot showroom and warehouse in Wixom to better serve automakers and suppliers in Metro Detroit.

Methods is the largest U.S. importer of computer numerically controlled machine tools, which allow mass production of complex parts and reduce the need for human intervention. The company is based in Sudbury, Mass., but plans to draw on the technical expertise in southeast Michigan to make the Wixom facility its technology hub, said Bryon Deysher, Methods' president and chief executive.

The proliferation of highly automated machine tools means companies need factory workers to be more highly skilled than in the past. That also has a hand in keeping jobs from going to low-cost countries where much of the workforce is less educated.

At TAC Manufacturing in Jackson, workers use several high-precision robotic drills to make steering wheels, air bags and shift levers. That type of work would be difficult to send offshore, said Gurdeep Singh, a production engineer.

"That's always going to be staying here," Singh said.

However, low-skill jobs are often a casualty of automation. Robotic arms on a machine that erodes metal with an electrically charged wire underwater handle the monotonous duties that a person used to, said Neal Otten, an application engineer at Methods.

"Years ago, companies had to pay a guy to stand there all day and take off each finished product," he said.

Automation has been critical for manufacturers that are being pushed to expand their output while slashing prices. Many customers of Kentwood-based Autocam Corp., which makes brake and fuel-injection components, now want finished parts instead of just the rough forms the company used to produce.

"The goal," said Walter Lord, an Autocam manufacturing engineer, "is always to do more with less."

You can reach Nick Bunkley at (313) 222-2293 or nbunkley@detnews.com.