This category covers businesses that primarily re-wind armatures and rebuild or repair electric motors. These companies may either repair customers' equipment, or repair or rebuild for sale or exchange to users or the trade.
811310 (Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment (Except Automotive and Electronic) Repair and Maintenance)
335312 (Motor and Generator Manufacturing)
A generator, or dynamo, converts mechanical energy into electrical energy by rotating an armature through a magnetic field. Most electricity used in cars, homes, and industry is made by generators. The armature — usually made of copper wire wound around a laminated core of soft iron — is the rotating or stationary assembly in the generator, and is the main current-carrying conductor. A steel shaft is fitted through the center of the core to which the two ends of the copper wire connect.
Companies in the armature rewinding business re-wind damaged coils or stators, fix hermetic seals on electric motors, and generally restore electric motors and components. They fix everything from small automotive generators to giant industrial and utility devices. The industry consisted of 2,119 companies in 1998, most of which were small service centers.
Englishman Michael Faraday and American Joseph Henry developed the generator during the 1830s after discovering they could make a magnet produce electric current. Generators became widely used during the late 1800s, which, in turn, created a demand for repair shops to service them. After World War II, the industry benefited from U.S. economic expansion, which increased electricity consumption and generated a need for motor vehicle generators. Throughout the twentieth century, the basic design of the generator and armature have hardly changed.
By the early 1980s, armature rewinding shops billed $1.8 billion annually and employed a work force of 31,000. Industry revenues climbed at a rate roughly equivalent to inflation during the 1980s, pushing sales to $1.9 billion by 1987. Total sales for 1992 were $2.3 billion. There were 2,498 industry firms in 1992, down from 2,830 in 1987. There were 26,607 industry workers in 1992, down from 27,255 workers in 1987. This job decline may have been due to increased automation and efficiency within the industry. A recession weakened some firms in the early 1990s, but by the mid 1990s the both the industry and the economy began to recover. In 1998, this industry reported $2.8 billion in sales, a 10 percent increase from the previous year.
Some of the largest armature rewinding shops in 1999 were Brithinee Electric of Colton, California and Southwest Electric Company of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Even the top 25 competitors in the mid 1990s, however, had sales of less than $15 million and employed fewer than 100 workers.
Although efficiency gains reduced industry jobs during the 1980s, positions for armature rewinding industry workers were expected to rise between 1990 and 2005, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jobs for general repairers were predicted to climb as much as 35 percent by 2005, and electrical equipment positions were expected to increase by at least 9 percent. In the late 1990s, there were an estimated 22,700 employees in the industry.
Darnay, Arsen J., ed. Service Industries USA. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc., 1999.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Economic Census 1997. 20 March 2000. Available from http://www.census.gov .
U.S. Department of Commerce. 1992 Census of Service Industries & Geographic Area Series. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census, 1995.
U.S. Department of Labor. Employment Statistics. 2000. Available from http://www.bls.gov .
Ward's Business Directory of U. S. Private and Public Companies. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, 1999.
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