Posted on 08/20/2003 7:51:11 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
A Tennessee garbage-truck manufacturer closed its Phoenix plant as part of a consolidation move, dumping about 160 jobs in the process.
Chattanooga-based Heil Environmental Industries shut down the production line at its Phoenix facility on Seventh Street just south of Buckeye Road. Heil moved Arizona production capabilities to its plant in Fort Payne, Ala. Company officials hope the consolidation will result in improved efficiencies and more centralized customer service and product development.
Heil operated the plant in Phoenix since 1990. The company manufactures front-, side- and back-loading garbage trucks as well as recycling vehicles.
Randall Young, director of operations for Heil, said only a handful of Arizona-based employees transferred to the Alabama plant, and only a skeleton crew remains at the Phoenix facility.
Heil will continue to have distribution operations in Phoenix. The company also has manufacturing plants in Mississippi and Scotland. Heil Environmental is an arm of New York-based Dover Corp., which owns various industrial manufacturing companies. Dover divisions and subsidiaries manufacture everything from industrial printers and automotive production equipment to food refrigeration cases and cash dispensers.
Despite an overall rise in earnings for the first half of the year, Dover reported a decline in sales and earnings from Heil Environmental and some of its other manufacturing divisions.
The economic slow down, stalled corporate spending, reduced inventories and the movement of some production jobs to Asia have hit Arizona and the national manufacturing sectors hard. Semiconductors, aerospace and light manufacturing all have seen layoffs as companies tried to trim costs and adjust production schedules to lower demand.
In June, however, the state Department of Economic Security reported the manufacturing sector added 600 jobs in Arizona. That is the first gain in the beleaguered sector in the Grand Canyon State since December 2000.
Too bad Arizona didn't have tarriffs in place against Alabama goods. Nobody would be unemployed then.
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