JANET THOMAS, Tacony employee, hard at work at the commercial floor care production.

An announcement in late 2008 decided the future of Tacony’s commercial floor care production. Relocation of their facility in Chicago to St. James, MO means job retention/creation in this state. Tacony proudly puts the “Manufactured in the USA” label on its Missouri products made by Missourians.  Operations are scheduled to begin in April.
With quality issues an increasing problem for procured items in China and Korea, the choice was made to move all of their plastic molds and production activities from Korea and some of the products and tooling from China to St. James. These tools will be received in March and the production is scheduled to start in May.
This complements and supports their 2008 acquisition of a domestic plastic injection molding company. Several products have already been transitioned to St. James from China, such as the Dirt Meter tooling and production and ancillary vacuum attachments.
Dramatic increases due to shift from Chicago and the orient in their purchasing and warehouse distribution necessitates advanced training as they make decisions based on non-typical approaches to storage, warehouse layout and systematic purchasing procedures.
Logistics; the buzz word of flow patterns, revolutionized purchasing, space requirements, profiling and inventory analysis—Tacony cannot fall behind in this modernized technology.
Tacony doesn’t need to “preach to the choir” about the economy. Fortunately, they have not been faced with layoffs due to their forwarding thinking and complex management style.
What they’re doing to maintain their existing workforce is to train, cross-train and educate their employees for obtainable positions in upward and/or lateral jobs; then hire replacements for open or newly created positions. That means skill refining and particular education factors are critical to the success of their revised strategic plan—when the economy rebounds, they’ll have already developed their current staff for redeployment.
As stated by Human Resource Director Nancy Montgomery, “Not if, but when, the economic tide turns, Tacony Manufacturing will be prepared with a workforce that can meet challenges. We’re problem solvers; not grumblers. We’re tactical thinkers; not procrastinators.”