It's happening again. The changing landscape for transformer manufacturers is hitting Memphis, TN and no matter how many incentives the state and the city try to offer to keep the Mitsubishi Electric plant open, it all comes down to changing demand and supply patterns.

Rest assured that Mitsubishi is not closing this plant out of arbitrariness, but as part of their long-term business strategy. 

We might never know the real reason. Is it because this southern plant was likely opened within a right-to-work law, meaning you are not forced to work for a union, or maybe because the competition has found a way to make the transformers faster, better and cheaper? Or is it simply a shift in demand patterns?

Whatever the reason, these skilled workers who still make transformers - it is not all robotic yet - will be hard pressed to find employment of this caliber again.

Transformer manufacturing is moving to international markets and that can be a good thing for purchasers, while a bad thing for communities in the U.S., but the peak we are seeing is a changing peak.

Smaller transformers for transmission and distribution are the rage right now. Let's see if a buyer or partner surfaces, but there really are very little concessions that Tennessee or Memphis can make when the economics don't work anymore.

- Alan Ross, Editor in Chief