German company to open plant in Craven making dishwasher baskets

 German manufacturer Drahtzug Stein Holding Company will open a plant employing between 80 and 100 people in New Bern in June 2009.

Company President Wolfgang Stein said Friday that the company, which has produced dishwasher baskets internationally for BSH Home Appliances for 40 years, will invest $16 to $18 million to begin U.S. production here.

Stein said that no government incentives are involved the company's decision to establish a "just-in-time" supply operation in the former Amital Manufacturing building on Bosch Boulevard. The company has  leased the building for five years with options to renew.

The company plans to grow to full capacity manufacture of two million polyamide-covered steel dishwasher baskets a year to meet future BSH domestic demand, said Wolfgang Ritter, a childhood friend of Stein, who will come from an auto manufacturer in New Jersey to manage the operation here.

"We're not in for the short haul," said Ritter. "I believe we can, and it is my personal goal to, produce a high-quality product in the U.S. with workers from the U.S."

He said a pay scale has not yet been determined but the company is working with the N.C. Department of Commerce, Craven Community College and the Employment Security Commission to determine that and the best way to train employees.

Jim Davis, director of Craven County Economic Development Commission, who has worked with Stein for 10 years on this project, said timing of the announcement could not be better.

"Times are tough in North Carolina, the U.S. and the world and for this news to come on a day like today - that someone is making a private investment in eastern North Carolina to make a quality product - has to been inspiring," he said.

"We will be looking to expand the welding side as well," said Dale Kidwell of New Bern, who will be in charge of quality control.

"We can't do it alone," said Ritter. "We will need dedicated people from the county who want to succeed."

That kind of dedication figured into the company's choice to locate in Craven County after considering a number of eastern North Carolina and U.S. locations over the past 10 years.

Company officials said Davis, Mary Brown from the N.C. Employment Security Commission, staff at Craven Community College, and N.C. Commerce Sec. Jim Fain and his staff were tenacious and did a formidable job in recruiting.

 Drahtzug Stein manufactures wire goods and is a major supplier to European household appliance manufacturers from plants in Germany, and France, Spain, Italy, and Poland that employ about 1,400 workers.

The company evolved from a 1423 forge producing chains, coins, and weapons and is steeped in history, Stein said. "It is a family business which my grandfather bought in 1941" and has been continued and grown by his father and now him.

"But most of the key decisions are still made at my mother's kitchen table," said Stein.

His home and his parents' home are next to the main manufacturing operation in Germany's Altleiningen valley and Stein said they are small-town people with devotion to community that they will bring with them to their operations here.

The New Bern plant start-up will require employees willing to work hard at a variety of tasks, he said. "We will help each other out and produce," he said. "This is how the company has grown."