The loss of manufacturing work to the foreign competitors who use cheaper personnel is a personal issue to owners of small Michigan companies like Paul Kuyt.

"Outsourcing" would mean work lost to his Re-Source Industries Inc. If his clients send their jobs overseas, it would mean lost wages for his small workforce, taking food off the tables of the families his business supports.

So this Muskegon company uses American brains to defeat cheap overseas muscle. And Re-Source Industries appears to be winning its battles.

Stiff manufacturing competition from the likes of Mexican and Chinese plants is not merely election-year political rhetoric for Kuyt and his company's 28 employees. It's a reality that those at Re-Source Industries play every day.

Re-Source Industries has relocated in the city of Muskegon with the purchase of the former Burgess-Norton Manufacturing Co. building, 1485 Getty. The company is now setting up machinery and will be hiring a dozen new employees to fulfill it's contracts.

Re-Source Industries has manufacturing work in West Michigan that could have easily been taken offshore, Kuyt said. The small victory comes against the backdrop of such losses as the announcement of Electrolux AB's move out of Greenville where 2,700 workers will lose their jobs assembling appliances as the Swedish company flees to Mexico.

The competitive advantage in West Michigan manufacturing is in the power of technology and automation over cheap manpower, the Re-Source Industries example shows.

Kuyt is a tool and die maker by trade, but he and his technicians have gone beyond the usual machine setup process. They have learned to build entire pieces of equipment in-house from component parts so they can complete relatively simple machining processes.

Most of Re-Source Industries' high-volume work is done by machining equipment its workers' built. The company machines steel, aluminum and zinc parts for the automotive, hardware, appliances and furniture industries.

The innovation in use of technology that allows Re-Source Industries to obtain jobs is a good lesson for other West Michigan manufacturers, said Todd Battle, executive director of Michigan Area First. The economic development agency worked with Re-Source on the company's relocation to Muskegon.

"Companies that are having the most success are those that are innovative," battle said. " If it is a commodity and price is the key, the USA is not in position to win that game. But the winners are those who are constantly hungry and are coming up with new solutions."

Ironically, it was foreign competition that left a new 30,000 square-foot Burgess-Norton facility empty. Burgess-Norton -- known for years in Muskegon as Standard Automotive Parts Company -- built the new plant for $6 million in 1996.

By late 2002, Burgess-Norton Manufacturing Company was closing its Muskegon plant because its main customer was moving work to India.

The Burgess-Norton plant once employed more than 160 workers in Muskegon. In the mid-nineties, members of United Autoworkers local 1441 reached a six-year agreement that paved the way for the expansion and new plant in Muskegon.

The starting wage to Burgess Martin was $10.30 an hour; Re-Source Industries is non-union and pays basic production workers less.

Kuyt is concerned about the foreign competition. He said he must compete against companies that can pay less than a living wage, be free of government mandated occupational health standards and pollute the environment with little regulation.

'The problem is that we have an unlevel playing field," Kuyt said.