ACME INDUSTRIES is a small contract manufacturer with only ten big customers. But those customers are a cross-section of the industrial economy, spanning mining, oil, transport and construction. Right now, Acme’s order book is bulging. “Everyone is up across the board,” says Bob Clifford, the company’s head of sales and marketing.
In one corner of its factory just outside Chicago, three workers polish what looks like a steel Lego brick the size of a steamer trunk. This is designed to channel water underground at high pressure, and will go into natural-gas-drilling equipment. In another corner sit rows of hollow steel cylinders that will hold bearings inside the wheels of gigantic mining trucks being built in nearby Peoria. Mr Clifford points to several parts destined for diesel locomotives built by a subsidiary of Caterpillar a big maker of heavy equipment. Caterpillar is booming, and its ecosystem of suppliers across Illinois is “seeing a real trickle-down effect,” he says.
Manufacturing: Rustbelt recovery | The Economist
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