Craftsman's $90M plan to bring manufacturing back to Texas flopped because of faulty robots
- Tool company Stanley Black & Decker announced in 2019 that they would be opening a factory in Texas to bring American made Craftsman back
- Injecting $90 million into the process, which included state of the art robotics, the company said it would bring them back to their American heritage
- Three years later, the plant is now closed after the robotics used weren't up to scratch and the low number of tools produced have made them collectors items
The $90 million dollar plant in Forth Worth would employ 500 full-time employees as well as an army of state of the art machines to churn out American made tools manufactured with domestic steel.
Use of the high-tech robots for much of the manufacturing would lower production costs to a level normally seen in China, it was even claimed.
But the whole process became nothing but a headache for Craftsman - owned by Stanley Black & Decker - when company after the automated system failed and the number of tools being churned out dwindled.
The factory ended up churning out so few tools that they've become a collector's item on eBay.
In March of this year, just three and a half years after breaking ground on the 45,000 square foot factory, the company announced it was closing the plant.
Craftsman had previously been owned by Sears which had moved production of the tools to China several years prior to reduce costs.
Stanley Black & Decker bought the company in 2017 for $900 million, with then Chief-Executive James Loree saying they hoped to 're-Americanize' the brand.
The property in Fort Worth is now up for sale following the decision to close it earlier this year.
Stanley merged with Black & Decker in 2010 and then bought over Newell Brands' tool unit in 2017, turning them into a gigantic company.
Last year, revenue had climbed to a staggering $17 billion, up from $3.7 billion in 2009.
A spokeswoman for the company told the Wall Street Journal: 'We endeavored to make Craftsman mechanics tools in a new innovative way.
'The events of Covid and supply chain challenges coupled with technology that did not meet our expectation, resulted in the discontinuation of operations.'