Automatic Precision sees a bright future, despite potential tariffs threat on manufacturing business
The manufacturing landscape in the United States has changed over the years, but Harwood Heights-based Automatic Precision has stayed in business since 1976 without layoffs or cuts to workers' hours.
The company makes Swiss precision-tuned components, or products made by Swiss machinery, and specializes in connector and electrical contacts made from aluminum, brass, copper, stainless steel, bronze, nickel and titanium.
“We’re a job shop, so we service a lot of industries,” company vice president Chris Bulat, 53, said.
Bulat's father, Peter Bulat, started the family-owned company, and Chris Bulat's brother John Bulat also works there.
Chris Bulat said Automatic Precision manufactures parts for customers in industries such as automotive, aerospace, medical, firearms, hydraulic companies and the U.S. government.
The company has 49 employees working three shifts five days a week on 200 machines. Bulat said the company has been around long enough to have employed more than one set of fathers and sons or fathers and daughters, and it typically takes five years for someone to master the craft.
“We make things as simple as a shaft in a children’s wind-up toy to as complicated as screws for surgery,” Bulat said.
He said about 50% of the raw materials that Automatic Precision uses to manufacture items come from overseas, some of which are now subject to tariffs.
On March 12, President Donald Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, which could drive up costs for companies like Automatic Precision. Bulat said he thinks the tariffs will be short-lived — Trump has often changed his tariff policy, sometimes within hours — and that his company has enough inventory to ride out any price hikes.
“For the moment, we are OK," he said. "I haven’t seen any correspondence of any great concern from our suppliers. There seems to be this large fear that everything is going to go up, but the consumer has a choice to buy something or not or to buy it at another time. I’m quite confident that, after a certain period, things will go back to normal. Some of the tariffs only lasted for a couple days.”
But Bulat said if tariffs on raw materials remain, it's more likely his company will face cost increases that might have to be passed on to customers. But he said he sees a positive side.
“There are a lot of customers calling us, trying to secure U.S. capacity," Bulat said. "They are doing tariff cost mitigation, which creates jobs. And jobs create wealth and a good economy. There’s always a workaround. There’s always an alternate material.”
The uncertainty around tariffs and its impact reminds Bulat of when fuel costs rose in 2023 and “panic buying” during the pandemic — all things that, he said, eventually passed.
“I think we’re going through some tough times to get to better times,” he said.
Bulat and his brother will likely be the last in the family to run the business. He said his three children are pursuing other interests.
The company once had people lining up to apply for jobs, but the shift from manufacturing and the focus on college affected recruiting. Still, he foresees a large demand for people with technical skills and thinks more high school students should consider trade schools.
“I would very strongly suggest that kids who are mechanically inclined look into trade schools," he said. "There are a large group of highly skilled individuals who will be retiring soon. Ten years from now, the average electrician or plumber will be paid like doctors.”