Business & people
Milacron may shift work from Germany to the US and India
작성자 : Aeyoung Park
2018-02-02 |
조회 : 1551
Milacron may shift work from Germany to the US and India
The United States and India could get more injection molding machine production work under changes at Milacron Holdings Corp.
The Blue Ash, Ohio-based machinery company is making to plans to phase out manufacturing at its factory in Malterdingen, Germany, a year earlier than previously planned.
Spokesman Mike Ellis said machine production at the Ferromatik Milacron plant will end this year.
The Jan. 30 email confirms a change in strategy for Milacron, which had previously said it would keep the plant in Germany open through the end of 2019, then move production to the Czech Republic. Now, instead, the company may move that production to existing plants in the United States and India.
Ellis said another plan for production in Europe has not changed: the staging, testing and final assembly of the company's Magna Toggle Servo (MTS) and Elektron injection molding machines will remain based in the Czech Republic, at a 3-year-old plant in Policka.
Ellis said: "We are currently reviewing production options for manufacturing locations of our various machines including the F-Series and the KTec.
"India and the U.S. (Batavia, Ohio) are the locations that are being reviewed, as we have capacity limitations in the Czech Republic due to our strong blow molding order book that was not originally anticipated."
Milacron has consolidated European production of its Uniloy blow molding machinery into Policka. The company also relocated its European distribution center for aftermarket parts to another Czech plant, in Sasovice, in a move completed in 2016.
Ellis also said Milacron plans to add more injection presses to its European lineup this year, including Hydron, the flexible servo-hydraulic press; and the fully electric E-Quantum.
The chance that Milacron's main U.S. factory in Batavia could get the additional press assembly work had nothing to do with the U.S. tax reform package, Ellis said.
Milacron's statement is more nuanced than a story Jan. 19 in the Badische Zeitung newspaper from Freiburg, Germany. The paper said Malterdingen made 100 presses a year of one type of machine that will be transferred to India.
The German report quoted Denis Poelman, managing director of Milacron's injection molding press business in Europe, as saying the Malterdingen plant is no longer profitable. "The fixed costs are too high. With 100 machines, you cannot possibly keep a production plant," he told the newspaper.
Poelman said Milacron's Indian location could get the production in January 2019. Production of another press model will be transferred to the United States, the core market for that model, he told the German newspaper.
Milacron will continue to have administration, sales and service and product development in Malterdingen. The machinery maker is based in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash.
Source: Plastics News
