Iredell in Transition :: Powered by statesville.com and mooresvilletribune.com

Iredell’s textile mills fighting to survive

Bethany Fuller | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | Oct. 14, 2007

Pevas Bailey placed a part back onto the knitting loom in the middle of Black and White Knitting Mills Inc. and let out a small sigh.

Standing alone in the large workroom with the sound of a lone loom echoing through the building, he looked tired.

The hours of worry and without sleep are etched in his eyes, and he is on the verge of giving up.

“There is no way to do it,” he starts to say. “I’ve been fighting this for two years now.”

Bailey isn’t alone in his fight for survival.

Textile mills across Iredell County and the country are playing chess with their competitors, going back and forth, winning and losing contracts while trying to find the perfect move.

Many mill owners and managers say the best strategy is to specialize in a product and make the mill indispensable.

Bailey is working on a top-secret project he hopes will create a niche market to save the business his uncle, Alfred Bailey, left him.

“He believed I would fight with everything I had to keep it open,” he said.

The game board
This project isn’t the first time Bailey has tried to distinguish his company from other small cloth manufacturers.

In his warehouse, the ceiling-high shelves are stacked with boxes of old projects and canceled orders.

Once upon a time, the company was known for its ability to make high-quality fabrics and employed 35 to 45 workers. That reputation earned contracts with Tommy Hilfiger, Jane Fonda and Belk, but then everything started to unravel.

John Marek, business retention and expansion coordinator for the Greater Statesville Economic Development Corporation, said the transformation of the textile market began in the mid-1990s when North America Free Trade Agreement and Central America Free Trade Agreement were passed.

“That is really where the textile jobs started moving offshore,” he said.

One by one, textile mills around Iredell County started closing down.

Mooresville was built and sustained on the backs of textile workers. Large bushels of cotton would enter one side of the plant and exit as spools of fabric or clothing.

Mooresville-South Iredell Economic Development Corporation Director Melanie O’Connell Underwood said there used to be about nine traditional textile mills.

“We had more people working in the mills than working in the town population,” Underwood said. “We no longer have textile companies.”

The remaining textile companies in Iredell County have found the key to survival is in highly specialized fabrics, Marek said.

The list of textile manufacturers in Iredell County 2007 Directory of Manufacturers appears fairly specialized.

IFI Carpet Cushion in Statesville makes rebond carpet padding; PGI Non-Wovens Inc. in Mooresville produces polypropylene nonwovens and Trim Systems LLC in Statesville makes soft trim interiors for trucks

Thorlo Inc. found a niche by creating specific socks for different shoe brands.

“Everybody is more specialized today than they used to be,” said Jim Throneburg, owner of Thorlo. “The ones that don’t specialize seem to be eliminated faster.”

Playing the game
Bailey said his “top-secret” project isn’t the first time he tried to enter a niche market, nor will it be his last.

“I fully intend to take care of everyone who stood by me,” he said. “We feel confident we are going to get it.”

A couple years ago, he partnered with another textile company to win a contract from a Chinese company. They had the contract for two months before the Chinese company undersold Bailey, snatching the contract away.

The lesson Bailey learned is something every textile manager will tell you – don’t trust anyone.

Larry Rosenfeld, owner of R&J Webbing Corp, said his company just changed the way they played the game.

Instead of being a mass producer of textiles, Rosenfeld said his company uses its shorter supply lines to become a spot market dealer.

“A lot of us are struggling to stay in this business,” he said. “Everything is price driven and cost driven. The global economy means exploiting that.”

Textile plant managers and owners are a little bit skittish about letting people into their plant, even customers. When the R&L asked plant managers for photographs, several of the requests were immediately denied by plant managers who didn’t want their competitors to replicate their technology.

William T. Burnett Fiber Plant manager Mike McAllister knows a thing or two about having to keep quiet about company secrets.

Sometimes he has to deny customer request to see the plant.

He struggled a little to find the right words to describe his plant’s situation. He said he wanted to help, but he also didn’t want to give anything away.

“All of us are trying to pick out a world-wide market,” McAllister said. “It’s very cut throat.”

Even within the Statesville community, McAllister said they have to be wary of some of the other textile mills.

“We are not isolated as a business that feels that way,” he said.

One time, he went to visit a customer’s plant in Spartanburg, S.C. to see a piece of equipment it used. He said he was pleased when management agreed to let him see it.

When he arrived, the managers stood in the lobby discussing the product with him for a while before one of them asked, ‘Should we take him through the tunnel?”

“They had erected a temporary tunnel to get to that loom,” he said. “All they let me see was that one needed piece of equipment. It’s almost cloak and dagger.”

The next move
Before settling on this project, Bailey and his staff spent countless hours working on industrial fabrics and trying out other segments of the textile market.

According to a Duke University study, clothing and fabrics might have built up the textile industry in North Carolina, but nonwovens will be a big player in the future.

“A segment of the textile industry that does continue to go will in the US and in particularly in NC is non-wovens,” said GSEDC director Mike Smith. “Our community is positioned to compete in that part of the business, and we continue to recruit non-woven companies.”

Smith said this segment of the industry requires modern facilities with ceilings 18 feet high. These textile mills don’t require a large workforce, but will have fewer higher skilled jobs.

In the past couple of years, Iredell County has seen significant growth in the nonwoven segment of the industry, he said.

One of the big players in the nonwoven industry, PGI Non-Wovens Inc., has a plant in the Mooresville Business Park.

Underwood said their fabric is specially used in hygiene products, such as diapers and cloths for Swifter Sweepers.

Bailey said he has a few other projects in the works, just in case this one doesn’t turn out the way he hopes.

It is all about staying one step ahead, and if it takes late nights to keep the loom spinning, so be it, he said.

“I’m not just sitting back,” he said.

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