The quiet trade: some manufacturers import cover components from overseas. What does the industry have to say about this growing trend?

Outsourcing. It's a word guaranteed to evoke a strong response from virtually anyone who hears it. Yet regardless of your views, the effect that outsourcing has had on the world of manufacturing is profound.

"I think you always have to look in the global market to see what's there

When it comes to something as large as a pool cover, it's difficult to imagine that manufacturers could ever ship the assembled piece from a low-cost nation such as China or Mexico. It's cost-prohibitive, and as a safety product, production quality should be a No. 1 concern.

However, while the United States retains a stronghold on the assembly of covers, component parts are imported from around the world. "We bring in our cover fabric from Germany," Rogers says. "It actually costs us a lot more, especially since the Euro is going up. But we feel it has better quality."

Indeed, the importing of foreign products is changing the manufacturing industry. There are some parts of the country where it's more cost-effective to manufacture in the United States, and other areas where it makes sense to outsource.

"A lot of people look down on outsourcing and say that you're not supporting America," says Tom Dankel, vice president of AquaMatic in Gilroy, Calif. "But if you go out of business because you can't compete, you end up laying off hard-working people in the United States."

Unwitting involvement

In some cases, outsourcing may be indirect and unintentional. "We assemble all of our covers in the United States, [but] we may purchase buckles from a manufacturer, for example, and it may well be that those components are manufactured offshore," says Sue Sousa, national sales manager at Sunstar Spa Covers & Accessories Inc. in San Marcos, Calif. "We would have no way of knowing that for sure."

That doesn't mean cover manufacturers can't reduce costs by purchasing component pieces or even injected-molded parts directly from foreign companies. It's a trend that everyone seems to acknowledge will eventually happen, if it hasn't already. Yet few are willing to talk candidly about it.