On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:43:16 -0600, dpb wrote:

Frank Boettcher wrote:
On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:31:47 -0700, Mark & Juanita
wrote:

Frank Boettcher wrote:
...

Did the off-shoring decision occur before or after Pentair sold Delta?


Before. ...

Who currently owns the Tupelo and other manufacturing facilities and
what is being done with them, if anything, Frank?

The Tupelo facility is just an empty building, currently owned by
Journal Enterprises a charitable arm of the local newspaper, who have
it available for lease. All the machinery was auctioned off and the
tooling scrapped out for the most part.

The rest of the tool group facilities were transferred to B & D when
the business was sold. I've not fully kept up with that, but I
believe the Oldham facility was closed and Biesemeyer in Mesa, AZ may
be in the process. Jackson, TN, is still open but with an ever
shifting charter.

(Would it be possible to line up a set of investors and try to make an
"All-American" brand?)

Virtually impossible at this point, in my opinion. We continued to be
successful before the consolidation/globalization because, among other
factors, the invested capital was so low. The facility, machinery,
and tooling were, for the most part fully depreciated but well
maintained and continuously upgraded. Capital was spent only as
necessary to maintain quality, improve efficiency and introduce new
products. Which is how it should be.

It takes a tremendous range of equipment and tooling to be a full
product line woodworking machinery manufacturer and the invested
capital to start from nothing would be very large, and put the firm in
an immediate position of being not competetive. While the market for
the higher quality product was slowly but steadily growing when we
were in operation, I believe the premium for product from a start up
operation in the U. S. would be too high to be attractive.

Where is Saw-Stop manufacturing, do you know? I always presumed they
were using offshore contracted production, but don't actually know...

Don't know, have not kept up with Saw Stop except for threads here
relating to whether the technology should be mandated which I am not
in favor of.

Frank