Stanley Black & Decker (SBD) said that they would be making more Craftsman tools in the USA, but that did not work out as planned. Let’s dig into what happened and why.
Let’s start at the beginning, to ensure everyone is on the same page.
8 years ago, just after acquiring the Craftsman brand in 2017, SBD said:
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Stanley Black & Decker will focus on U.S. manufacturing
We are committed to bringing Craftsman’s manufacturing back to the United States
6 years ago, SBD announced a new Craftsman hand tool factory, saying:
The plant will also leverage some of the most advanced manufacturing technologies available to optimize productivity and sustainability
News reports at the time said that the new Craftsman factory would involve “robots and fast-forging presses.”
5 years ago, Craftsman said select mechanics tools and tool sets would:
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soon be made with global materials in Fort Worth, Texas.
2 years ago, in March 2023, even before any tools made it to stores, SBD and Craftsman announced that they would be closing their new USA hand tools factory.
What happened? I was told that there were numerous obstacles that could not be overcome. How could the world’s largest tool company fail to open a new hand tool factory in the USA?
There are some insights buried within a legal complaint Stanley Black & Decker made against Park Ohio Forged and Machined Products LLC that also does business as Ajax-CECO.
Ajax is said to be the largest forging equipment supplier in North America. The company filed a counterclaim against Stanley Black & Decker. Both companies have alleged breach of contract against each other.
Here’s what we know:
SBD purchased around $4.8 million in press equipment and accessories from Ajax, for use at their manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
SBD accused Ajax of delays, design issues, mechanical failures, and testing failures, and said that the provided tooling was never capable of complying with agreed-upon specifications. They also said the equipment exhibited oil leaks, improper and unsafe guarding, and bolt breaks. SBD says Ajax never adequately remediated any of the alleged issues.
They were quite specific at times:
The mechanical press machines themselves also exhibited major reliability and performance failures. These included clutch problems, brake failures, and a persistent inability to conform to the Specifications and meet testing requirements.
Ajax denied many of SBD’s allegations, and filed a counterclaim alleging that SBD was in breach of their obligations under the same agreement.
Ajax argued that everything they manufactured, delivered, and installed at the Craftsman factory in Texas were built to SBD’s specifications. They also said that SBD repeatedly requested changes and modifications so that the machines could be incorporated into SBD’s automated system, and that “while the machines met all requirements” SBD “caused delays and expense by its conduct.”
Ajax insisted that:
to the extent the delivered equipment failed to perform, the responsibility falls, in substantial part, upon the Plaintiff [SBD].
SBD alleged the failures were their supplier’s fault, and Ajax alleged SBD was to blame. I have not seen any proof presented in the complaints, responses, or counterclaims.
There was a Joint Report of the Parties’ Planning Meeting, and then in mid-2024 there was Joint Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice. It’s not clear what type of settlement or agreements the two parties arrived at, and so we might never learn further details.
Going back to SBD’s complaint, this next part provides crucial context, with bold emphasis my own:
Without operational Tooling, SBD was left unable to meet production schedules and commitments, or complete and ship sufficient wrenches, ratchets, and other products to fulfill its obligations to retailers and other customers. These retailers canceled their orders for SBD’s hand-tools, and SBD was left without a viable market for the tools it had planned to manufacture and sell from its Fort Worth facility.
There it is; SBD and Craftsman lost their “viable market.”
The takeaway for me is that SBD’s failure to successfully launch a new line of USA-made Craftsman tools might not have been completely their fault.
It seems clear that things went wrong at Craftsman’s new USA hand tools factory, specifically that the machine and processes never worked right. It’s not really important to the end results as to which party is blame, whether it’s SBD, their supplier, or if it’s shared by both.
Frankly speaking, I had a hard time believing that this failure rested on just $4.8 million worth of equipment not meeting specifications. Why not scrap it and start over? This amount of money seems almost trivial to the world’s largest tool company; SBD had revenue of $15.4 billion in 2024.
Years of investment, and they just… gave up because they couldn’t get the machinery working properly?
SBD was left without a viable market for the [USA-made Craftsman hand] tools it had planned to manufacture and sell from its Fort Worth facility.
It seems that once retailers were no longer interested in USA-made Craftsman tools, which doesn’t sound unreasonable given the long delays mentioned in the lawsuits, there was no longer impetus for SBD to keep going with their plans.
Thus, it seems that faulty equipment led SBD to miss delivery commitments, and this led their retailer partners to cancel orders and move on.
Nathan
Sounds like a great cop out too. Its a common thing now in business for the seller to tell the Buyee that well you asked for this after and ….. And picture 2 little kids slapping each other on the playground. So the question is what does the contract actually say and since there was a dismissal it appears ajax didn’t give back the money and who was found in prejudice?
Meh. To think it was this hard and what year was that 2020. Meh why did they also stop making power tools in the US with global supplies?
Rog
This is the same impression I got: It became an easy out for them to quit and blame the equipment/supplier after a change in market and/or their prospects. ~$5m in equipment is a drop in the bucket for a company like SBD in relation to the overall investment.
fred
But $5 million was a cost going forward. Nothing they could do about already sunk costs – but spending more on a forlorn hope was likely bad business.
Jared
The “Joint Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice” means the parties agreed to abandon their respective claims and not pursue them later – presumably as part of some settlement they achieved. I.e. it was resolved outside of court and they agreed not to being it back to court later.
That means we don’t know who was at fault and may never – unless maybe there’s some financial reporting related to the settlement.
Most likely though, if one party acknowledged fault and paid, part of the agreement is that neither party will ever publicly acknowledge that to avoid damaging the company’s reputation.
Rog
My gut says: SBD sued supplier over dubious “issues” to get out of paying. Vendor says “hell no!” and counter sued. SBD settles to make it all go away.
Stuart
The planned schedule looked involved and lengthy, and might have cost both companies more than either could have hoped to recoup.
My gut says that SBD needed to file suit no matter what, but there is zero basis for drawing any conclusions about who was really at fault or at least largely responsible for what happened.
I found it most interesting that retailers pulled interest.
Nathan
Right I googled it too but that’s just it. Well we won’t say the claim was real and well both companies said on paper they wouldn’t tell so….
At bare minimum and is 50% at fault is my read.
More telling in my opinion is the lack of is made power tools in USA. Like the used to. Seems to have happened at the same time
Bruce Caron
They don’t know how good they had it when Danaher was making tools for many manufacturers .Sadly Danaher is also gone .
Chaz
This copout led me to Tekton, which mostly manufacturers tools in Taiwan and USA. They manage to prioritize production not in countries that don’t like our existence. Anything other than actions is performative art in marketing. Companies worth 15 billion USD aren’t going to quit a major promise to consumers over 4.8 million. That’s probably what they pay for in copier leases. Some weenie printed a spreadsheet and now executive bonuses are safer.
Nathan
Companies worth 50 cents would quit a promise to consumers
Eric
Shutting down the plant instead of finding a different supplier sounds like a convenient excuse to me. I doubt that retailers wouldn’t order their USA made tools. They just don’t want to have outstanding orders with a delivery date that might be years in the future. I’m sure once they got production going they would have received orders. I think it’s more likely that they decided sales of the imported tools were doing well enough. That is was more profitable and less risk to just keep outsourcing production.
Chris
Yup. As I was reading the article I thought to myself how $4.8 million was pocket change to SBD, and they decided to close down just because of that? And sure enough, the next paragraph I read, Stuart made that same comment. They couldn’t have temporarily sourced imported forging machines for half the price to at least get up and running? Something else is up. Cause we all know damn well that if craftsman started making quality tools in the USA again, people would eat them right up.
They invested $90 million into the plant! What a load of crud. I was really hoping SBD could give craftsman the rebranding it deserved. And it was looking so promising too.
What an absolute shame.
Stuart
From the way it was expressed, it sounds like current and future orders were cancelled.
It seems to me that even if they invested more money into getting things working, it would have been moot without orders.
Malco discontinued their USA-made Eagle Grip locking pliers, citing low demand. They closed the factory, sold the property, and 2 years later the entire company was sold to a private investment firm.
ToolGuyd works because there’s an audience. Take away any chance of reaching readers, and it might as well be a Word document on my computer.
eddiesky
There it is right there: private investment firm.
Sears gone with only Craftsman stores that would soon disappear. Competition from cheaper sources like Harbor Freight, as well as interests from Big boxes (Lowes) and smaller chains (Ace Hardware).
But the one thing that always got me was Craftsman lifetime warranty. It was unsustainable. I know a story of a trash hauler that was in northeast Philly. And one truck that handled near a Sears, would pull up at the transfer station and a lot was cleared for that truck. It would dump and hundreds of “broken” aka store discards, Craftsman tools were on the lot. Employees would fish through grab as much as they could. Then off to other Sears and/or Craftsman stores to exchange for new. And then resell online or at flea markets. It was a racket. Even some old folks I know, till this day, will find old broken Craftsman ratchets, drivers, sockets…and go to Lowes or Ace Hardware to exchange (and most are better, more expensive replacements).
Its a tragedy that is all to familiar back to Chainsaw Al Dunlop. Rape a product, milk its worth, profits out, discard it. Rinse. Repeat.
Op: Its not Made in the USA if its only assembled in the USA with outsourced parts. Correctly, it could be Designed and Assembled in the USA with Global Materials.
Michael Lindsay
Craftsmans come back has been a huge disappointment. I do believe their tools are subpar and over priced. SBD is just riding the nostalgia of the Craftsman name. As a kid I was always in the tool department when we went to Sears so growing up those were the tools I purchased. Now those are the tools I avoid.
OldDominionDIYer
Tragic story but very enlightening! How is it that the largest tool company in the world couldn’t overcome this? Especially since Milwaukee Tool Co. actually built a working productive hand tool factory in Mississippi essentially during that same time period and is producing some great American made tools! Makes me more and more convinced corporate SB&D knows nothing about tools and they’re just a commodity broker, tools or tampons they don’t really care! Reminds of the absolute disaster DeWalt had trying to roll out a battery powered zero turn! Tragic but not surprising at all.
ITCD
I would point out that there’s some differences in the products which might help or hinder, either way it makes a separate set of challenges. For example, full-polish chroming, something that the pliers and screwdrivers aren’t getting but the sockets and ratchets were. There’s also questions surrounding the specific equipment purchased for the job, and what specifications were given, and what if any consulting SBD (or Milwaukee) utilized in bringing together a successful machinery and automation setup.
SBD does know hand tools, they run dozens of factories around the globe making them, they’ve been in the biz like what closing in on 150 years now? But I don’t know how much their other facilities in China and Taiwan and Dallas etc etc are relying on automation, while it was a clear goal in the Craftsman Fort Worth plant to utilize automation to make tools but at a lower price point than what their Proto stuff demands for example.
OldDominionDIYer
That’s just it, they don’t run any factories they contract their spec to factories and receive a product that meets their specs. That’s the same as me walking into and Italian restaurant and ordering lasagna then bringing it home and serving it for dinner. It’s my dinner served in my house, but someone else actually has the knowledge, skills and abilities to create it, not me, but it tastes great! Conglomerates like SB&D buy “competing” product companies rape the tech and rebrand their product (I.E.: Cub cadet) and they all eventually are reduced to making the greatest profit until their product is not in any way inspiring. Sadly, it’s all about the profit for them at this point, they barely resemble a tool company. How many “Pipeline” style events does Dewalt or any SB&D Subsidiary hold where you can talk with the engineers and designers of the actual product? They don’t go out into the field and shadow industry professionals to understand the challenges and seek real solutions like companies like Milwaukee does. Tragically they seem content to follow and work on improving existing designs rather than pursuing innovation.
cenzo
FYI, SBD isn’t Harbor Freight (as of yet). They do “own” factories outside of the US as well as in the US. Thailand, Taiwan, Mexico, UK are some examples. All of these manufacturing locations are run by SBD employees. You are correct that they also work with suppliers outside of their manufacturing umbrella, but to claim they only do that is wrong.
Stuart
In the absence of deeper insights, I can only guess.
Milwaukee USA hand tools: aimed at pro users, especially electricians, with premium engineering at a premium price point
Craftsman USA hand tools: aimed at mid-range consumers
Given the parties involved, let’s say each of 1700 Lowe’s store around the country were to carry 3 Craftsman socket sets at small, medium, and large price points. Let’s say the sets each had 20, 50, and 80 “real tools” such as sockets, ratchets, and drive accessories, plus an amount of insert bits and similar that we don’t care about. Let’s also say each of Lowe’s 1700 stores each carried 10x or each set for the holiday season. That would amount to over 2.5 million individual tools.
According to a news article SBD’s factory was projected to produce 60 million tools per year.
When it launched, Milwaukee’s factory was producing 10 pliers parts per hour on each of 3 machines. They planned for 3 shifts 5 days a week with weekend surge potential. 30 parts implies 15 sets per hour, which comes out to less than 94,000 pliers per year, not including surge potential. I believe they have expanded their volume goals since then.
Still, the product volumes are very different. We’re talking about chocolate chip cookies vs double layer chocolate cakes.
How could a company that has never built pliers and screwdrivers in the USA successfully build their first factory that does just that, when a company that currently produces some mechanics tools in the USA can’t build a modern one? I wish I knew the answer to that.
When Malco was establishing their Eagle Grip locking pliers like, they said they had employed a lot of workers who used to produce Vise Grip pliers with the same equipment. It took them a lot of money and time to reestablish production, and they had to improve a lot.
I can’t say I know much about what such endeavors involve.
Joe E.
I really like Craftsman’s V20 series at Lowe’s, but their hand tools/mechanics tools leave a lot to be desired. From raised panel wrenches made in India to their chunky grip, pot metal pliers to their incomplete mechanics tool sets that skip sizes and are loaded with bits and hex keys… why would anyone buy that garbage?
Jared
We will never know exactly what when wrong and how much of a challenge fixing it would have been. The pleadings give us some clues about what the problems were and why SBD didn’t fix it – but it’s impossible to gauge if the problem was surmountable or not and what other factors were in play.
However, SBD actually spent millions attempting USA production. Clearly they intended to do it – it wasn’t just a lie for publicity’s sake… yet, they didn’t actually do it.
If you value USA-production, does that make them WORSE than a company who never tried it and made no claims? Not in my mind.
Is that just as good as a company who actually engages in US-production? Also no.
Stuart
Their investment was much greater, but from the lawsuit it seems that everything hinged upon less than $5 million in equipment that never worked right. I’m sure there’s more to the story.
Nate
“Retailers cancelled orders for late products” does not equate to “it’s impossible for us to ever sell another tool in the history of forever”.
“Left without a viable market” implies the latter, but what they said happened is the former. I call shenanigans.
If they found a new supplier for the manufacturing equipment, and actually made the tools people want, are they suggesting that retailers wouldn’t carry them? Newly-made-in-the-USA Craftsman tools? No market? Really?
Come ON. That’s lunacy.
MM
Well said. I agree 100%.
Stuart
Dewalt once announced new locking pliers. https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/dewalt-locking-pliers/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Milwaukee announced new locking pliers months later. https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/milwaukee-locking-pliers/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
The Dewalt model never made it to stores, presumably because Home Depot gave shelf space to Milwaukee instead of Dewalt.
Lowe’s put a lot of ToughBuilt tools on clearance. https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/lowes-toughbuilt-utility-knives-clearance-2024/%3C/a%3E It seems like the tool brand lost shelf space to Klein.
What’s the tool brand supposed to do, make tools with no place to sell them? How long is that sustainable for?
If orders were cancelled, I think that absolutely would have impacted SBD’s plans.
Rog
“If you build it they will come”?
Stuart
That’s been proven untrue.
https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/malco-eagle-grip-locking-pliers-discontinued/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Do you remember the lawsuit between the Bionic Wrench company and Sears? The big problem wasn’t that Sears/Craftsman launched their own competitive tool but that they stopped ordering holiday season promotional volumes from the Bionic Wrench tool company.
What happened after Sears shifted away from USA tool suppliers for Craftsman and then sold the brand?
Western Forge closed https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/western-forge-usa-hand-tools-sears-craftsman-supplier-closing/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Pratt-Read is gone https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/pratt-read-usa-tool-brand/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
SPG International (tool box maker) closed https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/spg-international-tool-boxes-craftsman-husky-other-brands-closure/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Waterloo was suffering (as evident by their FTC compliant) and was acquired by SBD https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/stanley-black-decker-acquired-waterloo/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Vaughan’s hammer business ran into trouble https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/vaughan-usa-tool-factory-closure-report/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Apex Tool Group closed the Armstrong brand https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/apex-tool-group-cuts-armstrong-and-allen-tool-brands/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
There are some boutique tool brands that expanded into broader distribution. But for mid-priced toolmakers, we have seen what happens when you take away their high volume markets.
Tucker
It is amazing what the downfall of Sears did to all of these smaller USA tool companies. Craftsman was a house brand and sourced tools from all over, Sears itself had no skin in the game as a tool maker, unlike SBD.
For me, if tools are USA, Canada, Germany, etc., it does not really matter if they are good tools at reasonable mid-market prices, but it has been a real loss so many smaller good tool companies have gone under.
It’s a shame Home Depot, Lowes and others did not step in and use that capacity for their own lines such as Husky, which could have really stepped in and taken the place of Craftsman.
Stuart
SBD was also a Sears Craftsman supplier. So was Bosch, TTI (Ryobi), Chervon (Flex, Skil), and others.
Chris
Something fishy is going on. SBD invested 90 million into the manufacturing plant, and then gave up over 4.8 million worth of equipment? They could have easily gotten a temporary setup going with imported forge tools at half the price. But they chose to abandon the whole thing.
It’s really pathetic how much they touted their new “state of the art facility” and then totally abandoned it after a setback instead of just pushing back the launch date, even if by a year.
People would have eaten quality USA craftsman tools right up if they managed to work things out and the investment would have paid itself off within a decade or two easily.
I definitely hope something changes in the future and they can actually complete what they promised.
Stuart
I think that the modern processes were needed to get product costs low enough so as to make the tools affordable for Craftsman’s target audience.
People want USA production at import prices. This is what Sears and Craftsman used to offer, but things changed a lot since then.
I presume it was Lowe’s that cancelled their orders, maybe Ace too. I assume this factory was designed for volume, below which it might not have been feasible.
Again, there’s a lot that we know, but so much that we don’t and probably never will.
Robert
Stuart, you summed up the whole situation and every one of the other USA tool brands going out of business in:
“People want USA production at import prices“
I’m guilty of it too, and it takes me. an act of will to overcome it.
Jason
Exactly.
MM
I think he said it even better the other day, after the article about dewalt previously building cordless drills in the USA:
“People have an ideological preference for USA production, but a much greater preference for lower priced goods”
That is exactly it. And one thing I’ve noticed is that this preference is often limited to a particular area of interest. For example, here a lot of us are tool enthusiasts and we care about where those tools are made. But how many of us care about where other things are made? Does it make sense to complain about the lack of USA-made quality tools when we love buying Ikea furniture, ultra-processed foods, off-the-rack clothes, cheap foreign electronics, etc?
We say we want quality, yet empirically we seem to choose the alternative so much of the time.
Stuart
You’d be surprised about IKEA. They do have some made-in-USA furniture, and a lot of products made in Europe.
You can find USA-made clothing if you look hard enough, e.g. https://stringking.com/search/mens-apparel/t-shirts , https://darntough.com/
AKJ
Then you have wackos like me that only buy things manufactured in the USA. However, it is getting harder to do so as plants making items close up. See light bulbs in 2018 and towels in 2024. Unfortunately, I am far outvoted wallet-wise by the millions of Americans that buy imported items.
Jared
Would people have “eaten quality USA craftsman tools right up”?
There was pretty mixed reaction to the tool sets that eventually made it to consumers. It was priced aggressively and moved fast, but aggressive pricing doesn’t usually mean “high profit”.
Maybe that’s not the “quality” USA tools you are referring to, but that might also hint at the problems SBD was having with their state-of-the-art gear.
It seemed to me that people expected Proto-quality at Gearwrench pricing – and that’s likely one of the signals that made SBD reconsider the whole plan.
I genuinely think even vintage, glory-day, Sears-USA Craftsman, if it suddenly showed up as NOS, wouldn’t live up to the expectations people had for the new budget-USA Craftsman SBD planned to make.
Chris
Honestly, I would just expect gearwrench quality from a US craftsman. People seem to really love gearwrench, why not match it. I certainly would not expect tool truck grade tools, even if they were reasonably priced.
I can see the point you’re making though, “glory days” craftsman tools were mid grade tools at best. I never liked their ratchets and their wrenches were hit or miss. But I liked their raised panel wrench style, and I loved the standard craftsman screwdriver style.
I’m saying this as a 26 year old who’s never stepped into a Sears. My dad has a chest of craftsman tools and we have lots of USA craftsman tools at work that do what I ask of them.
Luther
Very disappointing. I would have paid extra for US made Craftsman. I buy it at swap meets instead. The new craftsman is shiny junk. I had flare nut wrenches that stripped my fuel line fitting. The tool boxes are made of very thin metal. They have to bring it back and make it to the old specs. I believe they are also afraid that people will want the china wrenches replaced with American under the lifetime warranty and that will kill the business model.
Scott K
Without having experience here or inside knowledge- it seems like a total cop out. At the prices they could eventually reach, I find it hard to believe there wouldn’t be a viable market. USA made tools with Craftsman’s stamp seems like something with a lot of potential marketability if they were willing to accept it wouldn’t be an overnight success. I’m sure the challenges were significant but it sounds like they weren’t truly dedicated to making this work.
PW
I think making it work was going to be a lot of headaches and effort, and it’s easier to just dial up their favorite offshore ODMs and place an order.
Scott K
This was the cheap and easy option which is really disappointing. This also makes it fair for consumers to complain about a lack of American made tools.
ITCD
There’s still tons of American-made stuff. Sometimes, ya just gotta open that wallet. Several options for ratchets, sockets, wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, most of the basics really. We even have two domestic options for bit ratchet systems, insert bits, etc.
The question is, is MIUSA worth MIUSA prices to you? Some companies have figured out ways to keep prices relatively chill like Channellock, not everyone can (or wants to).
PW
They had some kind of serious QA issues going on.
I picked up a socket set in Lowe’s when they were blowing them out. The sockets were covered in rust, and the ratchet locked up the first time I used it. I returned it – that experience was worse than low end imported stuff.
I asked an engineer I know about the rust issue, and based on his experience (and my pictures) he said it was likely due to problems with their production equipment, not just normal storage and transport.
I think they gave up on the hard work of getting production right with an experimental line and fell back on phone dialing offshore ODMs. Why work harder for your profits?
ITCD
No need to outsource. They own tons of factories abroad. I’ve spoken to someone who was part of SBD when they bought the brand, and their job at that time was as part of a team who had to go through the whole Craftsman catalog, and find comparable products that they themselves made. So a 13/16 deep well socket, alright well we have this facility in China making sockets and they do that size and a bunch of others, let’s roll with them for sockets. Etc.
S
If they really invested 90 million and then everything fell apart over 4.8 million in tooling, this is like framing in a custom house, and bringing it all the way to installing the counter tops. Then realizing the countertop company discontinued the color/pattern planned on. So the entire house was dismantled.
From the filings, it really sounds like ajax submitted a bid, likely to a certain set of specifications, and Stanley turned around after ajax brought in the completed equipment and realized their specifications for the bid were entirely wrong.
I’m dealing with something similar in a sister facility. My facility is running strong. So strong there’s too much demand in the area. So the parent company started a new facility near by, and brought in low level management from across the country to become the new high level management.
But it’s a normal problem in management. Give a puppy a t-bone, and soon they’ll be biting the cow. Problem is, cows bite back.
Extrapolating that, I suspect it was a new management team for the facility that put together the requirements of the new equipment. And being eager new management, they alone created the machinery specifications(despite likely having a number of engineering teams available to do it for them to a higher proficiency) that ajax worked towards, but the newbies had a very minimal concept of the actual needs of the plant they were creating. Which led to a situation that’s been repeated far too often. Where the supplier did exactly as the purchasing company specified, but it by no means did what they needed it to do.
Stanley likely realized that while this round of equipment to the flawed specifications cost $4.8million, after the big bosses stepped up to go over the actual needs of the facility, they very well could’ve figured it would’ve taken another $20-40ish million additional to fix the mistakes and get running.
And staring down a potential $44.8 million total mistake/overrun on a $90 million project plus at least another 2-3 years down time minimum to scratch build the machines really needed… that would definitely be enough to abandon everything lost so far, and forget the entire thing ever happened.
But it never hurts to try to jam the industry ‘tiny guy’ in a locker on the way out to reassert some dominance. At least until they show up with brass knuckles.
Greg
I’ve read a lot of these comments and this is the only one that rings even remotely probable. Plus I’ve seen the same thing happen and its all too familiar an issue.
equipment supplier to new management: “Are you sure you want the equipment to only do “x”; seems like it would need to do “x”, “y”, and “z”.
new management: “just follow the spec” (that only includes “x”)
3 years later
new management: “you know what we were trying to achieve why didn’t you think ahead and incorporate “y” and “z” along with “x”
Brad J
Unreliable machines AKA operator error and lack of preventative maintenance. Sounds like they had everything they needed but hired a clown to run the show.
Rick Norman
I went out and bought a couple of sets of the USA made tools when SBD blew them out through Lowes, what a disappointment, Harbor Freight has better looking tools than these, rusting poorly polished chrome, sloppy fitting sockets compared to my 50 year old USA Craftsman sockets these new ones look like they were made by a 6 year old
Kentucky fan
Craftsman should have been a license to print money for whoever owned the name. Sb&d has done everything possible to make the current hand tool line up confusing and unappealing to consumers
Scott F
I am 30 – I remember Sears Craftsman, but I never picked up a ratchet until about the final years of Sears’ existence. Craftsman is what it is in MY mind because I grew up with a mechanic father, and when I came of age to have a car and learn his trade, guess which tools I was allowed to use at-will? Craftsman! (I could touch the snap ones, but oh boy if something went missing… LOL).
Now I say all of that with a point – I have this nostalgic desire to like the Craftsman name. But at the same time, I am about at the point where my tool purchases are because I need something specialty, or because there’s a new power tool I am interested in;I am not buying ratchets, wrenches, sockets, screwdrivers, and pliers very often, if at all. Maybe as gifts, maybe because Stuart posted a deal – but more often it is just not happening.
So if I, at a meager 30yo, am not really falling into the target market for hand tools – who is? I know not all people at my age have their toolkits outfitted, but my point of the age is I feel very close to the age threshold that has any nostalgia/good feelings about Sears Craftsman. For most people younger than me (starting a new career, or starting to earn enough disposable income to fill out a garage) what is going to drive them to Craftsman versus any other brand? Especially when most people are shopping by price tag?
Personally, I don’t think there is much to drive them there. And speaking from my own perspective, the Craftsman brand has been tarnished. I would not buy Craftsman tools today, and I’m really not sure that MIUSA would change that. I think this was an investment made with rose colored glasses, and after enough time elapsed from the acquisition SBD saw the writing on the wall and allowed this measly $5M issue to cement Craftsman into the ‘Dog’ section of their BCG matrix.
Also agree with the points made above that $5M was probably based on contracts, and the defects/oversights in the SOW are probably a meaningfully larger sum if they were to redo it all correctly. And to what end – would they recoup the investment and return to a growing prosperous brand? The world may never know….
Oarman
Not necessarily disagreeing with sentiments from other posters, but you have to remember that if the time frame was “2017 to 2023” that everything is horribly warped by the Covid-19 Lockdown funhouse mirror, especially if it remotely involved supply chains, labor force, or physical storefronts.
My first reaction to this is “How badly do you have to botch it to take 6 years to open a factory with a big name and buyers lined up and fail” and then I look at the dates and think of the bonkers things we had to go through to get equipment, and am a lot more sympathetic. I’ve still got huge supply chain distortions compared to pre-Covid JIT.
John
This situation is a good example of the challenges companies face trying to re-shore production. Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers are more than capable of producing tools that pass muster with American home center consumers. Pre-tariff, these Asian factories were able to deliver these goods to US retailers at lower costs than comparable US-made tools. Retailers like Sears and Home Depot always want to improve their bottom line, so switching from US-made tools to imports made sense for them. Once that ship sailed, the market for US-made tools essentially dried up. SBD’s production challenges and delayed launch gave retailers cover to cancel future orders. The choice to abandon the Fort Worth project was unfortunate, but likely an effort to avoid further expense. SBD must have realized how much of an uphill battle they were facing trying to bring production back to the US.
atavistic
I’ll bet each side paid the lawyers far more than $5M.
Doc
Shut the plant down! Point fingers at each other! Write everything off ($$$$) declare a loss! When no one is lookin. SELL everything off (more $$$$)! This smells a lot like political promises!
loup68
I remember when they first closed the plant that a couple of the SBD employees from there stated that they had horrible production problems.
One lady said that the machines broke down too much, or would not work.
She said that they were made in BELARUS and there was a horrible time trying to interpret their language in manuals to fix things. Who buys Belarus production machinery?