Applied Concepts Inc., a Marshall Township manufacturer of Robogrip adjustable-grip pliers that became the best selling tool ever sold by the Sears Roebuck & Co., will close its plant at the end of January, a spokesman said Thursday. The closing will leave some 100 hourly wage workers and another 17 salaried employees out of work, said Matt Wisla, a spokesman for the Emerson Electric Co. in St. Louis, which owns Applied Concepts. The plant had also employed dozens of temporary workers at various times. Jobs at the plant, where both Robogrip pliers and the RoboHammer are made, will be phased out starting Jan. 1, Wisla said. The Robogrip is designed so that the handles stay in a relatively easy-to-grip position, no matter what size bolt or other material is being handled. The RoboHammer is designed so that it does not recoil after striking an object. Employees at Applied Concepts will not have the option of relocating to another company run by Emerson, he said. "We pretty much expect these actions to be permanent." Workers will receive severance pay; the amount will be determined by an employee's service at the company, Wisla said. Shutting Applied Concepts is part of Emerson's plan to cut its work force by 10 percent, or some 4,000 employees, throughout the world. Already, Emerson has made about 70 percent of those cuts, Wisla said. Emerson is also the parent company of Westinghouse Process Control Inc., O'Hara Township. No layoffs have been announced at that unit. But the situation "is still under review," Wisla said. "Each business is managed to meet current market conditions, and that is part of a continual review," he said. Emerson said closing Applied Concepts reflects "the changing marketplace and the current economic environment in the tool industry" as well as "international competition and the current economic downturn." "In no way does it reflect the quality of work done at the plant," Wisla said. The company has a large inventory of Robogrip pliers and RoboHammers and will be able "to meet customer needs," Wisla said. Applied Concepts was the brainchild of Hal Wrigley, a dentist and former Green Beret who, along with others, invested in 1988 in the self-adjusting pliers that had been invented several years earlier. Sears signed a deal in 1993 to sell the pliers. In 1997, Sears sold some 2.5 million Robogrips under the Craftsman brand name.

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