Manufactures decry a shortage of skilled workers
and a tepid capital investment climate, but global market
demand is still driving some plant expansion activity in the sector.

E

ver since Providence, R.I. mechanic Cullen Whipple devised an automatic machine for turning out screws in 1842, machinery manufacturers have been making small, incremental changes that produce big results for a whole spectrum of OEMs and consumer products. In fact, it was 60 years later that the next big screw innovation so dramatically influenced the nascent automobile industry, when first Canadian Peter Robertson (in what was then the bucolic town of Milton, Ontario) and then Oregonian Henry Phillips acquired patents on socket screws. In the late 1920s, the use of these screws over traditional slotted screws was saving Canadian Ford plants as much as $2.60 per car on production costs.
      The machinery that helps to make and install those tiny parts -- or maintain the physical plant necessary to make them -- is still evolving and serving mechanical force requirements in both general-purpose areas (HVAC, metalworking machinery, power transmission) and specialized sectors (agriculture and construction, industrial, commercial and service). The commonplace nature of the technology is one reason it does not get the credit it deserves, says a report from the Association of Manufacturing Technology (AMT), explaining that information technology has stolen all the thunder, but does not deserve all the laurels.
      "Just about any manufactured product you can think of in some way relies on machine tools," explains Denis Dupuis, general manager of Oxnard, Calif.-based Haas Automation, "whether it's to make the product itself, to make the mold that makes the product, or even make the machine to make the product. In fact, we use Haas machines extensively in our own facility to make parts to build more Haas machines."