But the people who get the 15 new jobs there will. So, too, will the 100 who won’t lose their jobs.
The expansion of the 370,000 square-foot foundry will cost $11 million and is necessary to bring the company into compliance with the Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act, McCartney said.
By 2014, plumbing companies can no longer sell products with lead in them, McCartney said. So if the foundry in Franklin hadn’t adopted new technologies, it wouldn’t have been able to make valves for the U.S. market, McCartney said.
Established in 1959 under the leadership of George Horne, Webster Valve already employs 520 people in Franklin. It’s just a fraction of Watts’s total operations; the firm has 5,900 employees and 70 facilities worldwide.
Two years ago, in a decision unrelated to the present expansion, Watts closed its operations in Tianjian, China, and moved about 150 jobs to Franklin, McCartney said.
The company received tax credits from the New Hampshire
Department of Resources and Economic Development for the repatriation and has applied for similar credits for the new construction.
Today, to celebrate the continuing commitment to New Hampshire, Gov. John Lynch and Franklin Mayor Ken Merrifield are expected to be on hand when McCartney and others from Watts hold their groundbreaking ceremony.
McCartney, who lives in Massachusetts and has been with Watts for 27 years, spoke with the Monitor about Webster Valve’s latest expansion and why Watts has been bringing jobs back to America.
How does the new law, the Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act, change things for your industry?
Up to this point, the plumbing industry has been governed by the Safe Water Drinking Act of 1976 and this new law takes precedence over that. So basically what the new law says is that people introducing products … involved with potable water – water that’s fit for human consumption – those products basically have to be lead free. So the entire industry is now going into a transition to meet the requirements.
What will the foundry be able to do now that it wasn’t able to do before?
This will give us the ability to melt and pour the no-lead bronze. The issue really is that this material that we’re moving towards, this no-lead bronze, is much more difficult and technically challenging to use than the old material.
Why is lead-free bronze hard to use?
When you take the lead out of bronze it makes it more difficult to melt it in a foundry because you’re replacing it with additional copper, so it makes it more difficult to pour, melt.
Will the product change at all?
To the average homeowner or building owner, this should be completely . . . invisible. The product will look the same, it will not be any more difficult to install the product. . . . I think if you’re not really involved in the manufacture of the products, it’s probably something that’s not on your radar screen
Why shut down operations in China? We hear all the time how much easier it is to do business there.
There’s a number of reasons. The cost environment in China is changing, where it is becoming more expensive to manufacture there versus, say, 10 years ago. You have cost issues around foreign exchange, increased taxes, increasing transportation costs. And you also have a lot more complexity when you’re managing a plant in China from New Hampshire or Massachusetts versus just managing a plant that’s nearby. The logistics are much easier. You have a lot less inventory. It’s easier to meet your customers’ delivery requirements if you’re manufacturing closer to the market that you’re serving.
(Molly A.K. Connors can be reached at 369-3319 or mconnors@cmonitor.com.)
Source Article from http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/319671/the-die-is-cast?page=full
