This Economy: Montco factory still going strong at age 107

Few large-scale factories have survived manufacturing's shift away from the Philadelphia region during the last 30 years.

The early 2000s brought the closure of the Budd Co. in the city's Nicetown section, General Electric Co. in Southwest Philadelphia, and Philadelphia Gear Corp.'s plant next to the Schuylkill Expressway in King of Prussia.

But near Jenkintown, SPS Technologies L.L.C., a company rooted in Philadelphia manufacturing's glory days of the early 20th century, has not just survived, but appears to be thriving under the ownership of Precision Castparts Corp., of Portland, Ore.

The Abington Township factory, which produces bolts that hold wings on jet airplanes and other fasteners for Boeing Co., Airbus S.A.S., Lockheed Martin Corp., and other aerospace manufacturers, has hired 50 skilled machinists since the beginning of this year and is looking for at least 20 more, a local executive said.

"I've got a backlog of parts that I can't fill," said Kevin M. Stein, who leads Precision Castparts' Jenkintown SPS fastener division.

Manufacturing data released last week by the U.S. Department of Commerce showed a big jump in orders for aircraft and parts from December to January.

Stein's division reported $331.1 million in sales during the most recent fiscal quarter, off 11 percent from the comparable period a year earlier, though profits fell less. "We're starting to dig out of the hole," Stein said.

Even during the worst of the downturn, the Jenkintown plant was relatively insulated because of a strong backlog of orders, said Stein, who was born on the Main Line, but who grew up in New Hampshire and returned for the SPS job about a year ago.

The Jenkintown plant, where workers voted Thursday against a unionization effort by the International Association of Machinists, employs about 1,000 now, up from 900 when SPS was sold in 2003 to Precision Castparts for $729 million.

Since the sale, Stein said, Precision Castparts has invested tens of millions of dollars in the Jenkintown plant, which dates to 1920, when Standard Pressed Steel Co., as SPS was then known, moved out of North Philadelphia. Howard T. Hallowell founded the company in 1903 after inventing a steel hanger to replace cast-iron ones used to hold overhead shaft drives that powered lathes and looms.

In recent years, the adoption of the efficient manufacturing techniques at the Jenkintown plant has cut by more than 50 percent the amount of time it takes a raw chunk of metal to be turned into a finished product packaged and ready to go out the door, Stein said.

SPS has remained viable in Jenkintown through the decades as manufacturing jobs shifted overseas because of efficiency gains and because it makes highly specialized, expensive parts that are heavy to ship and that have to be delivered on time. "You can't afford for it to sit on a boat from China," Stein said.

Friday's jobs report brought good news for U.S. manufacturing overall. The sector "added workers for the second consecutive month, said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors. "It was just 1,000 workers, but that was the first time in four years that happened."

Ironically for Stein, even as the U.S. job market overall continues to struggle, his division has had to work hard to fill its openings. "We are exploring all options on getting these people hired," Stein said.

The company posted jobs online, published advertisements in foreign-language newspapers, and even considered advertising on billboards in Bucks County, where the company finds many of its employees. But only about 20 people showed up for a job fair the company held Feb. 13.

For another push with newspaper advertisements, Stein said, "We worked with an outside company to jazz up the ad."