Injection Molding Center Opens...

It was good news for the hundreds of employees and local elected officials gathered in the auditorium Tuesday following the company's decision last year to retain its global headquarters off North Brinton Lake Road while transferring 150 jobs from its Bridgeport, N.J., facility.

"In an era of declining manufacturing in the U.S. and here in the Philadelphia region, the creation of the injection molding facility will enable Southco to develop and manufacture innovative products and provide superior service to its customers," McNeill said.

"The opening of this facility is part of the company's proactive restructuring plan to rebalance our operations around the globe, while maintaining our roots in Pennsylvania," he said. He said 90 percent of the products manufactured here will be consumed in North America.

Southco serves more than 70,000 customers in 70 countries with 3,000 employees worldwide, McNeill said. The firm also has facilities worldwide in Mexico, Asia and England. The sprawling facility opened here in 1965 after moving from its original site in Lester.

Using high-tech tooling and robotics machinery, the company's 135,000-square-foot campus manufactures specialized hardware for the automotive, aerospace, railway and trucking industries in addition to consumer electronics and computer markets, among others. The company was founded as the South Chester Tube Co. in 1899, originally making pipes for the petroleum industry.

Its specialized products also include electrically operated locks, auto glove-box latches, captive fasteners, positioning hinges, handles and other innovative parts.

The facility has more than 500 associates with more than half working in production, including 325 residents of the state in addition to residents of Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland.

There are also 120 engineers and technicians, 74 professional staff and 67 in marketing sales and customer service, McNeill said.

"From a continuing education/business standpoint, we average over 35 hours of training per associate — which is well over 15,000 hours per year," he said.

The company also provides more than $300,000 in tuition reimbursement each year to its associates, and its employees serve on the advisory boards of Drexel University and Delaware County Community College.

"Unless you've been living under a rock, it's hard not to have read about ... the fact that the world's manufacturing footprint has shifted," McNeill said.

"And this has certainly impacted Southco because we service that footprint," he said. The company made the decision several years ago that it had to get closer to its customers, establish standards of excellence and improve its speed and cost-competitiveness, he said.

"The difficulty was that business was built on a North American business model that shifted up," McNeill said. "So we wanted to do this in a way that we would protect our legacy, costs and our people, yet knowing that we had to invest in the changing world."

During a tour of the spacious facility, McNeill said its engineering department is granted between 25 and 30 new patents a year, and the company manages about 750 patents globally.

The injection molding department employs 60 workers who use about 3 million pounds of materials a year in the manufacture of various plastic parts.

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