Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Buck Brings Knife Production Back to the U.S.

At least two Idaho manufacturers are bringing a small number of jobs back to the U.S.

BY BILL ROBERTS - brobertsidahostatesman.com

Buck Knives was facing the pressure of getting its labor costs down about a dozen years ago. The company began shipping up to half its production to China.

Domestic customers � many of them fans of the company�s well-known hunting knives � weren�t happy. They wanted their product made in America.

�Hunters are rednecks, and they don�t like anything with that C word on it,� said Chuck Buck, the company chairman, whose grandfather founded the company in 1902.

So over the past several years, Buck Knives has taken steps to bring all of its hunting-knife production back and much of its other production to its plant in Post Falls in northern Idaho, where the company moved from Southern California in 2005. Previously, 30 percent of the hunting-knife output came from China.

Buck Knives is not the only Idaho company �reshoring� � the opposite of offshoring, and the buzz term for bringing jobs from abroad back to America.

Ende Machinery and Foundry, owned by Ed Endebrock and his daughter Sue Edwards, has just started to make castings for a plant Endebrock owns in Lewiston that makes hydraulic pumps for trucks and other uses.

He had been outsourcing that work to China.

The foundry will bring 20 jobs to Craigmont � a town of about 500 people south of Lewiston on the Camus Prairie � and has some townfolks thinking the business will attract even more companies in the future.

�That is why we are excited to see the foundry,� said Raina Frei, a Craigmont City Council member. �This could be huge for Craigmont.�

Buck Knives and the Craigmont foundry are part of what so far is only a minor national movement. Reshoring from China and other countries doesn�t even show up on statistical employment studies, said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a nonprofit that pushes for increased manufacturing in the United States.

Reshoring is not a trend, he says: �It�s a trickle.�

NEW ECONOMICS BRING JOBS HOME

The trickle is a response to economics. China�s cheap labor and its artificially cheap currency � intended to foster industrial growth � are being offset in the U.S. by more automation, increasing freight costs, needs to be closer to resources and customers, and a surging interest in products with the label �Made in the U.S.A.�

Otis Elevator Co. recently announced that it would move several operations to a new plant in South Carolina employing 360 people. One of its plants in Nogales, Mexico � also home to 360 jobs � will be shut down. Otis wanted to move resources closer to the eastern United States, where it makes most of its sales. The company employs about 60,000 people worldwide.

BUCK KNIVES GROWS IDAHO JOBS

Buck Knives began moving jobs overseas partly in response to demand from big-box retailers for lower prices. The company couldn�t meet the retailers� price requirements without cutting labor costs, Buck said.

Eventually, half the company�s production went overseas � and a lot of customer goodwill went with it.

As the country�s economic problems have worn on, demand for U.S.-made products has started to rise as customers seem more intent on keeping money and jobs at home. A study by the Manufacturing Alliance showed a strong support for U.S.-based companies and labels. As Buck Knives has moved production back to the U.S., its sales have picked up, said Phil Duckett, chief operating officer.

Getting those jobs back home took some work.

As Buck was sending work overseas, it came to realize that a time-honored method it used for calculating costs was delivering poor information. The company also began focusing on ways to eliminate waste in its operations. It found ways to shorten down-time on machinery between production cycles and to make better use of its Post Falls plant.

The company found problems with overseas production. It wasn�t facile enough to respond to market demands. The company risked getting more product than it needed because of the lag time between ordering and market conditions when the goods finally arrived, Duckett said.

Putting more production into Idaho gives the company better control over how much product it needs to make and how quickly it can meet customer demand, Duckett said.

Buck Knives brought 240 jobs to Idaho when it abandoned California and its high costs for energy, worker�s compensation and other business expenses. During the recession, its employment dropped to about 200. It has rebounded to 265. Most of the growth comes from the reshored China jobs and development of new products.

Not long ago, overseas plants produced half of Buck Knives� output. Today they produce 25 percent.

Buck Knives wants to keep moving production from China to Post Falls over the next few years, Buck said.

�I want to get out of China as quickly as I can,� he said.

FOUNDRY LIGHTS DREAMS IN CRAIGMONT

For his part, Ed Endebrock sought to get better control of the foundry operations he had sent to China.

Like Buck, he wasn�t happy with delays. He didn�t like the lag time between shipping and receiving or the fact that his money was tied up in it. He was frosted when he sent plans for a proprietary piece of equipment from his Lewiston plant to his Chinese manufacturer to reproduce, and the newly produced part ended up in the hands of his competitor before he received it.

He started looking for a place to build his own foundry to cast the parts he needed for the Lewiston plant. He settled on Craigmont, about 45 miles away, partly because it is 15 miles from a company that makes undercarriages for John Deere and Case combines, a ready source for scrap steel for the foundry.

He got the idea to build his own foundry about the time the recession hit and other foundries started going out of business.

He traveled the country looking for foundry parts he could bring to Idaho. He cannibalized foundries in Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina. Thirteen semitrailer trucks brought materials to Craigmont.

He used his own cash and a Small Business Administration loan to get the foundry running. It started pouring a few hundred pounds of auto scrap, scrap steel and iron a day. That is now up to more than 2,000 pounds a day.

�I feel really good about it,� said Endebrock, who named the Craigmont company Ende after his father�s nickname. �We need to bring back our manufacturing base to this country. We can�t live on flipping hamburgers all our lives.�

The impact on Craigmont is still unfolding. Frei, the councilwoman, said 20 jobs is a big deal in a farming town that once had 700 people. These jobs � and others that could follow � may help hold young people, she said. The city, which has become a bedroom community for Lewiston, might become more of a city in its own right, where people not only live, but shop, too. The foundry also offers the promise of part-time work for retirees and stay-at-home moms.

Maybe one day, Frei said with a laugh, the city will be able to pull out one of its old population signs.

Bill Roberts: 377-6408

Read more: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/10/23/1850121/made-in-china.html#ixzz1boTF83Kz

Thats what happens when you go cheep and go to china.
Its an expensive lession.
I hope he learned.


dave

That's really good to hear. I stopped buying Buck products due to being Chinese made.

I've never seen a Chinese made Buck knife, so I never stopped buying them.

A close relative's family owns a wholesale business selling artificial flowers, craft supplies, etc. and as far as I know all of their products are imported.

Back a few years ago when there was the big stink about finding lead in the paint of products manufactured in China I asked him if it would effect their business in anyway. He said no, because they had not been buying anything from China for a good while because it got too expensive and now about all their stock is manufactured in various other third world countries.

From what I've been hearing and reading, many Chinese company's are importing workers from the north and/or contracting work out to companies in other countries because the southern Chinese have had a taste of the middle class lifestyle and want more of it. Many more are now wanting a taste of it, too.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

Never cared for the quality of Chinese steel.

Post Falls is only a 10 or 15 min drive to either Spokane or Couer d'Alene. Craigmont, however, is way out there. It's a very small town surrounded by other very small towns. It's 40+ miles to any airport and 120+ from a big airport (Spokane). It would be a big boost to Craigmont, to be sure, but the town sure doesn't have much to offer. If the business grows, I hope he doesn't have trouble finding people who are willing to live there.

I've been carrying the same folding hunter I got for Christmas when I was 11.

Glad to hear they are coming home.

I only hope and pray more companies "re-shore " as they call it.

I have been buying and using USA made Buck Knives for years. I carry one every day of my life.

The company should have cared more about continuing the quality of their product, instead they got greedy!

I've got no sympathy for them... help move quite a few companies to mexico back in the 70's when all this crap started, and a good majority of those I helped move back within a year or so...

They never learn!

Phil

Me too. Mine's a Rush, I think it's close to perfect for my everyday knife.

Any company bringing jobs back to the USA is good news.

I don't think its greed, it has more to do with what people in general will pay for something be it a pocket knife or an Iphone. We have way to much over regulation and government interference in the private sector. This is not new, a lot of companies that out sourced to China found that it was not worth it in the end. They start off fine but over time the work just becomes shotty, and the stealing of intellectual property is just rampant in China. And I don't care what anybody says, they are a 30 foot country every thing looks great 30 feet away but up close things just do look quite right. I fly airplanes and helicopters for a living, and Cessna has a new airplane its called the Cessna 162 Sky Catcher. Its an updated 152 and it weights in just enough to be LSA. Light Sport Aircraft. They are making the Wings in China, I give it a few years and Cessna is going to quit there. As good as the airplane is, and it very good, I don't think they are doing as well as the would be doing sales wise, if it didn't have the Made in China aspect to it. Cessna wanted a price point for the airplane, and you do what you have to do. Nothing but crap pretty much comes out of china, Apple Computers are having there problems there. With Jobs gone, I suspect that they will leave when the current contracts are up.

It was not greed- it's the marketplace for lower end knives.

Most folks will not spend more than $29 on a working grade folding knife. PERIOD. Can't build them in the US to sell at that price point.

Schrade, and Camillus went BANKRUPT doing it. Bear and Sons tries, but their sub $50 knives are SCHIT for quality.

The only knives Buck outsourced were the $30 and under knives. NONE of their higher priced classic knives like the 110 folder and 119 fixed blades were ever made in China.

The smartest thing Buck Knives did was leaving CA. They KEPT 250 jobs in country by moving to IDAHO and now are doing well enough they are bringing even the low end stuff home.

I'd say they are doing as well as they can for themsleves, their customers, and the American worker.

If you want to be pissed off at something as a gunsmith, get on the telephone and ask Pachmayr and Hogue why they cannot even make a [bleep] $30 RECOIL PAD in the US- They are ALL made in Mexico.

Nothing like staring at a $14,500 Echols Legend rifle and knowing the pad was made in Mexico.

Pretty sad.

Glad to hear about this.

Its more with the out of bounds greed on the part of local state and the federal governments than anything else, California use to be a hot bed of activity, businesses been run out of that state, In Connecticut they been running businesses out of the State as a matter of policy for a good 100 years now. I should have been able to take over my fathers Distillery and Bottling Plant, it should have been a going thing, the local, state and feds just sucked it dry. Could be making a good beer nope, you should see it now, grown over, the only reminder is a smoke stack that has the family name on it.

Our company went through the "China phase". They are starting to bring outsourced parts back locally. They figured out in the end, china is not really that much cheaper. China's idea of quality and our customers idea of quality are two different things.

The regime who thought it was a good idea to buy China parts are gone now. I guess it wasn't such a good idea after all.

I agree. This is why I never stopped buying from Buck. Only their low price point knives were made in China. They did what they had to do, but kept the decent stuff here in the USA, and left California.

We did a tour of the Buck factory this past summer as it is not too far from our place up there. Pretty darn slick operation and realy amazing that they feed the stores the way they do given what I thought was a fairly small operation. They still have a custom shop area where three people work on nothing but special stuff. They also have a special area dedicated to the 110 folder as it is, far and away, their best seller still. These guy and gals do nothing but build 110's. Pretty neat.