Industrial Linkage and Local Agglomeration in the West Midlands Metal Industries

Abstract

Sample establishments in the metal industries of the West Midlands conurbation are classified according to the number and function of their material linkages with other establishments. Three industries are examined and compared: ironfoundry, dropforgings and lock and latch production. Multivariate ordination techniques are employed to assess the combined influence of various linkages, and to identify different arrays of local and non-local connection. The extent of local agglomeration is therefore also identified in terms of the complexity of local plant linkage. This participation of industrial establishments in the local linkage system is then correlated with independently identified organizational attributes, including employment size, category of ownership, the technical processes employed and the principal product markets which are served. Local linkage appears to be related to the organizational form and size of individual plants, acting to some extent independently of their product categories. The spatial organization of manufacturing is thus shown to be one aspect of its more general organizational characteristics, suggesting that an understanding of one is important for the appreciation of the other. BOTH of the authors of this paper have quite recently been involved in a published discussion of the nature and significance for locational studies of 'industrial linkage'.' Such linkage we define to include all of the operational contacts, including flows of material and exchanges of information, between the separate functional elements of the manufacturing system. Although the relevant 'elements' may be regarded as whole industries or sectors of the economy (as in input-output studies2), this paper focuses on the locational attributes of particular plants and the manner in which production processes may be organized between them. At this scale we are concerned with industrial organization as it affects the interdependence of locationally separate establishments, both through ties of ownership and, more generally, through convenient commercial arrangements. In the past, only partial views of industrial linkage have been put forward. When describing the important features of 'horizontal', 'vertical' and 'diagonal' linkage, P. S. Sargant Florence3 was attempting to explain the logic of industrial 'swarming' in the case of the West Midlands metal industries. R. C. Estall and R. O. Buchanan,4 who relied heavily on the analysis of Sargant Florence, clearly associated the significance of linkage with industrial agglomeration for they stated that 'Linkage ... is ... a derived, not an original advantage; it is a method of utilising and increasing the advantage of an already developed area'. It seems inconsistent, however, to regard a sale, for example, between one West Midlands establishment and another as a 'linkage' and not a similar contact between the West Midlands and London. D. E. Keeble,s in his study of local linkage and manufac-