I am sure it was at the urging of Ingersoll-Rand that Torrington would get out of the needle making business. Why? Because it was losing money. That’s the simple answer.
What is interesting is to delve into how Torrington got into that condition. Lieberthal in “Progress Through Precision…” points to some of the reasons:
p. 108 “Prior to 1960, a very high percentage of the industrial knitting machines used around the world were U.S. made. From the beginning, Torrington had made it a point to have most new machines shipped with Torrington needles tailored to the machine. But with the bulk of the world’s business was in their hands, the U.S. knitting machine manufacturers became complacent and neglected to listen to their customers. They failed to invest sufficiently to improve and speed up their machines and the world turned elsewhere. In Germany, Italy and Spain, many new knitting machine builders seized upon the opportunity to break in and gradually take over as suppliers.
It could be said that Torrington also failed to recognize the significance of this change….Neither the move of the knitting machine business from the U.S. to Europe, nor the need to work with these foreign builders received the proper attention.
By 1967, then, it became apparent that Torrington had missed the boat…..”
p.116 “By 1971 doubleknit - and flatstock needles - was the name of the game in the knitting industry,…...profits (for Torrington) were merely marginal due to high scrap losses, and regrettably, the company never became as proficient at flatstock needles as it was at fine-gauge hosiery needles.”……………..
We see a picture of falling behind. Is that the result of having a weak management on the needle side of the business? It seems from the 1920s with E.K. Brown onward, Torrington’s focus was on development of the bearings business. Did that mean there had to be a neglect of needles?
Were there questions of territorial responsibilities? Fortunately needle profits were there to fund the bearings venture. Unfortunately, the lag of engineering attention to the manufacture of needles would ultimately ease its demise.
One of the stories, I have heard, was that the Excelsior workforce was made up of many first generation immigrants from the Eastern European countries such as Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, etc. These workers were innately intelligent and although they did not have the benefit of formal education, they were very capable needle makers. They had developed the procedures to manufacture very intricate needles. But, either as a means of job preservation or from lack of instruction, they kept the procedures to themselves without documentation. As these people retired, their knowledge and experience went with them.
Needle management started too late with too little to overcome the prowess of European competition.
Today, if you look up the website for Groz-Beckert you see an apparently successful needle manufacturer, surviving even with Chinese and Japanese competition..
At the time Torrington was selling its needle division, 1980, it was prevented from selling the knitting needle portion of the business to G-B by the Federal Trade Commission because that would have given G-B a monopoly, 90% of the world market for knitting needles.
G-B did purchase the Sewing Machine, Felting and Hook needle lines from Torrington and these businesses seem to have survived. If they survived, why couldn’t Torrington needles? It certainly wasn’t due to wage rates where the German worker enjoyed a high rate of pay and maybe even better fringe benefits than the U.S. worker.
Can anyone outline some other reasons why Groz-Beckert survived and Torrington did not ?
As far as what was left, Exeltor in Bedford, P.Q. Canada with Guy Champagne at the helm, picked up the knitting business through a private buyout.. Don’t know much about Exeltor but they also, seem to have survived handsomely, at least from the looks of their website.
We conclude, there are companies today making needles profitably and they seem to be doing it successfully. Why could not Torrington have done the same?
In a big corporate atmosphere, does one lose the will to compete and to survive? It does appear needle making was starved to feed bearing making.
Would needles have survived had we been satisfied with less on the bottom line? Or maybe if its future instead of being driven by the performance demand of the stock market had been driven by private interest?
Any thoughts?
Norm Massicotte
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Having worked as a manufacturing engineer, production supervisor [foreman 1st auto latch] and a short time in technical service before eventually becoming a KN salesman, I had a reasonably good feel for our manufacturing operation. Between the Bedford plant and Torrington plant, we had some of the best needle makers in the world. Unfortunately, the bean counters were looking at the cost of labor at all of out plants and decided that the Walhalla plant was the least expensive to run. What they should have looked at was the actual cost to make the needles at each plant figuring in scrape and quality levels. Bedford and Torrington beat Walhalla hands down. The main problem in Torrington was the union and upper management's desire to push the profits from the needle group into the needle bearing operations.
We were not adapting to the flatstock technology as fast as we should have, however, we did have the engineering capability to get there. The problem was that we did not have the money or time to do it.
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