Joe Almeida, President at Nedco and the Universal Grinding STUDER S33. Some 30-odd years ago, when I was president of Charmilles, a leading EDM machine tool supplier, I had the good fortune to be involved in the sale of EDM machines to the New England Die Company, Inc. (Nedco). That’s when I first met its president, Joe Almeida.  “It’s not uncommon to get panicked calls hoping we still make tooling, carbide tooling, polished carbide tooling,” Almeida told me recently. Nedco produces tungsten carbide and hardened tool steel tools, plus some aluminum and plastic components. “I’m your typical made-in-[the]-USA job shop,” Almeida says. “Business has been good for Nedco.”   U.S. vs. China Pricing China is the largest producer of carbide in the world by a wide margin, and it’s able to produce carbide products more cheaply without U.S. quality standards and stringent EPA environmental protections. China’s carbide product prices can range from 50 to 75% cheaper than U.S. prices.  Nedco was finding it difficult to be competitive with Chinese prices, and long-standing customers were being forced to offshore to China to cut costs. One of Nedco’s best customers was told by corporate to reduce spending by 25%. The buyer admitted the offshore quality was not good but reluctantly offshored the work to China for the prices that satisfied the corporate budget. A Reshoring Success Story Long-term manufacturing growth depends upon U.S. competitiveness and reshoring. With carefully chosen capital investment, process improvements, and new technologies, manufacturers can increase capabilities, capacity, and innovation, leading to new levels of efficiency, quality control, and competitiveness. Building a competitive advantage unlocks more reshoring opportunities.  Almeida wanted Nedco to become globally competitive and reshore its customers’ work, so he decided on a capital investment strategy and started working withRyan Michaels, Regional Sales Director, United Grinding Ryan Michels, regional sales manager for United Grinding North America. “Ryan was extremely knowledgeable and helpful in selecting the right machine and configuration for my shops’ needs,” Almeida recalls of his initial conversation.  Shortly after some trials and tests, Nedco invested in a Studer S33 Universal Grinding machine with quick changeover capabilities that helped them achieve great return on investment (ROI) — even with batch sizes of one or two work pieces. About one year later, the customer that offshored was so tired of reworking products from China that were “never right,” Nedco was given a good-sized order for tools, still in small quantities. “At Nedco, the quantity had always been one,” Almeida says. “I looked at it as a new way of processing tools with the new equipment investment. I was able to shave the cost over 25% while making more profit, and they bought on. [One customer] told me, now they get a box of Nedco tooling, and they gather around to open it up like it’s Christmas.”   Using the new automated machine with lot sizes of one, Nedco cut labor hours per part by 90%. Manual labor took six to seven operator and machine hours per part. The Studer takes two machine hours and 0.5 operator hours per part. Scrap rate is down from over 10% to zero. Almeida has never scrapped a part on the machine. Automation enabled Nedco to increase production while overcoming cost and skilled workforce availability issues. Automation overcame two problems. First, pricing vs. offshore. Second, skilled workforce availability. In the past, Nedco had three skilled manual machine operators grinding these parts. All were lost to retirement, death, or non-work-related injury. The Studer produces more per day than the three operators combined had achieved. “I look at it strategically,” Almeida says. “If you have a problem in China, where can you go to talk about repair, redesign? Are you going to travel 10,000 miles away? Battle language, equipment, and quality barriers?”  Meanwhile, another one of Nedco’s customers made an economic decision to offshore to China when the margins got too tight on an arthroscopic tool for the medical industry. Almeida suggested he could be cost competitive. The customer was skeptical but willing to share the 1,000-piece order and Chinese invoice with Nedco.  Automation Hurdles the Cost and Labor Availability Challenges U.S. suppliers have typically kept the high-mix/low-volume work and lost the high-volume items to offshore. Through process improvements, innovation, and new equipment, Nedco was able to create a fixture that produced 30 tools at a time compared to the eight of the Chinese competitors and produce them at a globally competitive price. Nedco won the work and has since made over one million parts profitably. In total, work that has been reshored now totals 60 to 70% of Almeida's business. Use The Total-Cost Metric Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is the best metric to use for comparative analysis. The Reshoring Initiative’s TCO Estimator is an online tool that helps companies account for all relevant factors to compare the true total cost of domestic and offshore sourcing and siting. These factors include overhead, balance sheets, risks, corporate strategies, and other external and internal business considerations. The factors Almeida mentioned, (e.g. quality, travel, and ease of communication of engineering and manufacturing) are included. Using this information, companies can better evaluate sourcing, identify alternatives, and even make a case when selling against offshore competitors. The Impact of Using TCO shows that shifting decisions from a price basis to using the free online TCO Estimator can be expected to drive reshoring of 20 to 30% of what is now imported. When new processes, technologies, and strategies are factored into a reshoring project, companies can amplify resiliency benefits and reduce or even eliminate the offshore cost gap. For help, contact me at 847-867-1144 or email me at harry.moser@reshorenow.org. You can reach Almeida at ne.die.co@snet.net. And be sure to attend IMTS 2026, Sept. 14-16, in Chicago, Ill., to see hundreds of technologies that can drive productivity in your facility. Register now at IMTS.com/Register 
Investment in new machines and automation, as well as a focus on total cost of ownership, enabled the New England Die Company to reshore substantial business and compete globally. 

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