A Revival in American Manufactruring, Led by Craft Food Makers

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Let's look at a part of the economy you can glimpse in the aisles of a grocery store. Maybe you've noticed a pickle jar with a rustic looking label or more microbrews in the beer aisle, brands you wouldn't see advertised on TV. These kinds of foods are becoming a regular offering. And as Planet Money's Adam Davison reports, far from being a niche market, craft food makers might just represent the future of American manufacturing.
ADAM DAVIDSON, BYLINE: One day Chris Woehrle decided to finally leave his corporate job and pursue his dream - to become an artisanal food craftsman. And so every day at home he'd basically pickle stuff.
CHRIS WOEHRLE: I had a refrigerator full of plastic food buckets that were full of pickles and kimchi and sauerkraut and harissa and salsa and ketchup and mustard and, you know, any kind of craft food you could make.
DAVIDSON: Chris Woehrle lives in Brooklyn, where shops are filled with hand-crafted, grass-fed, organically raised whatever. Too much of it, in fact. Every time Woehrle had a good idea, he found eight other companies were already making precisely the same kind of mustard or pickled radish.
WOEHRLE: You don't want to play a marketing game where it's just like, let's out-market the other pickle people.
DAVIDSON: Eventually, though, he and his partner found a hole in the market: all-natural beef jerky. Kings County Jerky was born. Two guys, a small warehouse in Brooklyn, and 25 pounds of beef a day. Food manufacturing - from a small shop like this one all the way up to those huge food conglomerates - add up to big business, well over half a trillion dollars a year. And the Kings County approach is a model for how all manufacturers can do better. Ignore low-priced commodity products. Focus instead on customizing high quality goods for a select audience willing to pay a premium. It works even on something as simple as a spring.
STEVE KEMPF: Springs are critical to the day to day functioning of everybody's lives.
DAVIDSON: Steve Kempf runs Lee Spring, which makes, no surprise, springs.
KEMPF: This telephone has a number of springs in it, from the buttons to the hang-up device. This stapler has several different springs in it, from the spring that...
DAVIDSON: Steve listed off all the springs in his office for four minutes. We timed him. My eyeglasses have springs. Our audio recorders have springs. And each of those springs has to solve a slightly different problem.
KEMPF: You take this wrench here, for example, and it's got a very unique L-shaped spring design. And so the product designer wants to come up with an elegant design and he also has a very specific force he wants when you let go of this wrench so that it opens in your hands and feels comfortable.
DAVIDSON: Think of this as an artisanal craft wrench. And a craft wrench, of course, needs a craft spring. This is good business, by the way. Companies will pay more for a spring that precisely meets their needs than they will for some off the rack spring. Incidentally, it makes spring manufacturing also a lot more fun.
JUAN DELGADO: The puzzle solving is what I love to do, OK? If you don't have a puzzle for me, I tend to get bored.
DAVIDSON: Juan Delgado is a coiler, and when he started here, 35 years ago, Lee mostly did make standardized springs, same thing every day. Now each day there's a surprise.
DELGADO: A regular spring - let's see if I find - here's a regular compression spring. This is boring to me.
DAVIDSON: Then he pulls out this crazy cone-shaped spring.
DELGADO: This - I look forward to things like this.
DAVIDSON: Just look at the gorgeous way the coils taper and don't tangle when you press down. Making something like this cone-shaped spring, that requires knowledge, artistry, in other words it's a true craft. Craft jobs typically pay more, so Juan does better than someone who doesn't have all those spring skills.
Even big manufacturers, like Toyota, General Electric, Dow Chemical, are focusing more of their business on custom-making products for customers willing to pay more. It's one of the best alternatives to competing with China and other low-wage countries which have perfected the commodity business of turning out lots of identical products as cheaply as possible.
Adam Davidson, NPR News.

World Climate Talks

DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Every year, the United Nations invites environmental experts and diplomats from around the world to negotiate ways to slow global warming. This year's meeting runs this weekend and next in Lima, Peru. Recent conferences have produced mixed results at best. But this year, as NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, negotiators say they have some fresh ideas.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: Some say these conferences of the parties are a warming planet's best hope. Some say they're a United Nations jamboree. The conference in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 was a breakthrough. It produced an international treaty to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. But that treaty failed to slow worldwide emissions. And no one can agree on a new treaty to replace Kyoto. One problem is that the Kyoto limits on emissions only apply to developed countries. But now China, India, Brazil and Indonesia are among the biggest polluters. So in Lima, the new plan on the table requires every country to do something to slow warming. Todd Stern is the U.S. government's climate negotiator.
TODD STERN: It's supposed to be applicable to all. And to us - I think to a great many countries - that was an absolutely critical few words because that said to us that we weren't doing Kyoto.
JOYCE: In addition to leaving out developing countries, the Kyoto treaty set mandatory emissions reductions that applied for all developed countries. But even some rich countries failed to meet them. So the plan in Lima would have each government offer up its own voluntary target.
STERN: And to subject what they're proposing to do to full sunlight, right? So the views of other countries and the press and everybody else can look to see what China, the U.S. or India or Europe or Japan or anybody else is proposing to do. And you take whatever criticism you get.
JOYCE: President Obama and President Xi Jinping did the voluntary promise thing two months ago. They set targets for lowering emissions in the U.S. and China over the next 10 to 15 years. But what happens if, when you add up everyone's promises, it isn't enough to keep a lid on warming? Alden Meyer, a climate expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, is in Peru this week.
ALDEN MEYER: Will there be a moment where all those contributions are added up and the world has to confront the reality of what it has put a table if it's not ambitious enough?
JOYCE: In fact, pledges so far from the U.S., China and Europe are not nearly enough to keep the planet from warming to what scientists say will be a dangerous level. Yet many developing countries say they can't do much because their priority is getting their people out of poverty - not limiting greenhouse gases. This is the deep difference that negotiators in Lima hope to resolve in time for the next conference of the parties in Paris next year. And they do have a carrot to offer. Wealthy countries have promised a $100 billion a year to help poorer countries buy the technology they need to lower emissions. There are plenty of businesses making solar panels and wind turbines and energy saving devices for rich countries, and they're eager to sell to the developing world as well. Many are part of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy led by Lisa Jacobson.
LISA JACOBSON: Once people start making these investments, they're going to find that they're easier to do than they expected. They're less expensive than they thought - that new jobs and new economic development opportunities exist. And they're going to want to do more.
JOYCE: And it's worth noting that at the very first climate conferences, many business leaders came to oppose a treaty. Now they're lining up to profit from one. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.

How a Bolt Is Made

How a Bolt is Made

Hello. My name is Al Fogel. I’ve been the Operations Manager here at Portland Bolt since 1987.  This is an inch and a quarter diameter by 48 inch long, galvanized F1554 grade 36 hex head anchor bolt. We just completed 356 of these anchor bolts for the Caney River Substation project in Howard, Kansas.  We’ve been manufacturing bolts like these by hand since 1912, and we would like to take you through our shop to show you how a bolt like this is manufactured.

Step 1: Shearing

The first step in the manufacturing of any bolt is to cut the round bar to length. Our Peddinghaus shears function much like a guillotine and chop the steel, rather than using a saw blade to cut through it. We are capable of shearing round bar up to 2 inches in diameter and up to 100” in length. Bolts that are larger in diameter or longer in length are cut using a band saw.

Step 2: Heading

Next, a hex head is hot-forged onto one end of the steel rod. An induction heating coil heats the end of the rod to approximately 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. A National Upsetter  is then used to forge the heated end of the rod into a hex-shaped head. Gripper block clamps the round bar securely in place while a plunger or die compresses the heated end of the rod reshaping it into a hex-head configuration. A second position in the gripper block is used to stamp the head with the manufacturer’s logo and grade symbol, as required. The hex head of this anchor bolt will be embedded in concrete, and it’s intended to provide pull-out resistance.

Step 3: Chamfering

High speed cutting blades apply a chamfer to the ends of the bolt prior to threading.  This beveled end will help facilitate easy assembly of the nut once the bolts have been threaded and galvanized.

Step 4: Threading

Landis threaders  are used to cut 8” of thread onto the end of these anchor bolts.  Rotating heads contain chases which cut away steel from the round bar to produce the threads. A constant stream of cutting oil is applied to reduce friction and to prevent overheating. Threads are gauged by the threading operators to ensure conformance to dimensional tolerances.

 Step 5: Hot-Dip Galvanizing

The bolts must be pickled prior to galvanizing. This process cleans the bolts and prepares the surface of the steel to accept the zinc. Parts are first submerged in caustic soda (Stage 1) which removes cutting oil and other organic materials that accumulate during the manufacturing process. The bolts are then rinsed and submerged in sulfuric acid (Stage 2) which removes any scale from them and etches the surface of the steel. The bolts are rinsed again and then submerged in flux (Stage 3) which is a chemical that assists in the bonding of the zinc to the steel. After pickling, the bolts are placed in racks and lowered into our 12-foot-long by 4-foot-wide by 7-foot-deep tank of 840 degree molten zinc. The bolt remains in the zinc for between 2 to 4 minutes. When the bolts are removed from the zinc, they are spun in a high speed centrifuge to remove excess zinc from the threads. Due to the proprietary nature of this process, we have not include it in the video.

Finally, the bolts are cooled in quench tanks so they can be inspected and packaged as soon as they are removed from the galvanizing tank. Blue paint is applied to the threaded end of each F1554 grade 36 anchor bolt to identify the grade, as it’s required by the specification.

Step 6: Shipping

In preparation for shipping, bolts are banded to pallets, shrink wrapped, and clearly labeled. The morning after your order leaves our facility, you will receive an email that contains shipment tracking information  in addition to a copy of full mill tests reports. Portland Bolt provides complete certification documents free of charge with every order. Portalnd Bolt products ship nationwide and internationally. Refer to this page of our website to learn about the geographical distribution of the bolts we manufacture.