UTNews
Research
By Deanna Lytle
Article published Nov 12, 2004
Industrial clusters are nearer in Toledo’s future, now that Drs. Neil Reid and Michael Carroll have returned from a fact-finding trip to Wolverhampton, England.
Reid, UT associate professor of geography and planning, and Carroll, Bowling Green State University assistant professor of economics, spent four days in the Wolverhampton region meeting with business and academic leaders to learn from their experiences with industrial clusters.
The visit followed Carroll and Reid’s analysis of the local economy in March to identify potential industrial clusters in the northwest Ohio region. Thanks to information gathered from the trip, the project is in its implementation phase, with clusters in information technology and the greenhouse industry set to begin by the end of 2004.
A cluster is a geographic concentration of interrelated companies, specialized suppliers, service providers, firms in related industries, and associated institutions. "The businesses compete with each other, but also identify areas where they can co-operate to mutual benefit," Reid said, with the main goal being to enhance their competitiveness and thereby keep jobs and business in the region. The cluster is led and organized by someone called a cluster champion. "This is someone who is in the field, talking to companies and making connections," Reid explained.
During their visit to Wolverhampton, Carroll and Reid encountered a number of success stories of industrial clusters, including "a customer who requested a new version of footings for scaffolding," Carroll said. "The supply company contacted the industrial champion, who connected them with University of Wolverhampton engineers." Using the facilities at the school, company workers were able to make a detailed plastic prototype of the footing to show to the customer. "They got the contract and the jobs stayed in the region," Carroll said.
Another success story was in the automotive field. A customer requested that a company lower the costs of door checkers, which are the pieces that keep car doors from opening too far. "The door checker had 16 different parts originally," Reid explained. "Working with other automotive supply companies, they were able to cooperative and make the door checker with 12 parts, which reduced production costs by 20 percent."
The cluster participants in Wolverhampton also shared some of the lessons learned during the process. "The cluster champion needs to be a private sector person," Carroll said. "They also realized not to make the cluster areas too broad, as this can dilute the benefits to be gained by a cluster-based economic development strategy." Finally, officials explained that University of Wolverhampton involvement in the clusters helped. "UT and BGSU are taking the lead here," Carroll said. "We’re engaging with the local community in economic development."
The information technology cluster now has a champion and is being formed with companies from the Detroit to Findlay areas. The researchers also are enthusiastic about the development of the greenhouse cluster. "They are small, often family-owned businesses, but they compete in a global marketplace," Carroll said. “We can get northwest Ohio competing as a region [through the cluster]. Some things they can do together include developing a marketing joint strategy and employing collective bargaining for heating."
Carroll and Reid said they plan to continue their roles as observers and advisers to local economic agencies in the industrial cluster process, with the hope that their efforts will have a lasting impact on the economic competitiveness of the northwest Ohio region.