The phrase “Made in the USA” gets tossed around quite often but what does it really mean? If you have some free time and are looking for some exhilarating reading go to the Federal Trade Commission’s website and you can read pages of detail about complying with the Made in the USA standard. Ultimately what it means is “all or virtually all” product has been made in the United States. How about we tell you what it means to Hydra-Tech.
Hydra-Tech Pumps was founded in 1977 in Mt. Holly, New Jersey and moved to Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania in 2007. We believe in supporting small and local businesses so we use local, domestic suppliers as much as we are able for anything we source from the smallest fasteners and fittings through a huge 400 horsepower diesel engine and all items in between.
The area where we really utilize the Made in the USA statement is castings. Of the approximately 130 cast parts we source to make the wide variety of aluminum, ductile iron and stainless steel pumps we manufacture, almost 97 percent are purchased from foundries within a 100 mile radius of our Nesquehoning location. Anyone who has been involved in manufacturing of any kind knows the significance behind this. Hydra-Tech Pumps could send all of these parts overseas and probably cut parts costs by 50% – 75%. However, challenges arise if a problem comes up when you can’t get in your car and visit a foundry in person and look at a pattern and their processes. Lead times are longer and logistics challenges are more significant when that skid of aluminum volute castings are coming from the other side of the world instead of the next county over. And based on the FTC’s guidelines I’m sure that would mean we couldn’t say “Made in the USA” anymore if went down that road.
All of our 22 employees are proud to promote and live by the Made in the USA phrase. We believe that it still means something to our customer base and to any new prospects as well.