Job shops watch for signs of growth

摘要

Is there light at the end of the tunnel for job shops? Many job shops predict better business in 2003, despite a tough 2002 and a brutally competitive environment. This was one conclusion from an informal survey of U.S. job shop executives undertaken by TPJ-The Tube & Pipe Journal~R in September 2002. "It's going to be a good year," forecast Kenneth Allen, operations manager, ABM LLC, a custom metal fabricator in Moreno Valley, Calif. "The downturn at the end of 2001 and early last year, plus the bad publicity on corporations, made people afraid and affected all of us. But we see more government contracts coming, and construction in Southern California is going crazy." Dan Dunbar, president, James P. Broadwell Associates Inc., St. Louis, added, "I'm upbeat It won't be the boom of the past five to seven years, and we won't see the same percentage increases, but we'll see slow improvement."