Standard Products Co. is moving its Canadian plastics operation to U.S. facilities to improve capacity utilization rates. The Dearborn, Mich.-based automotive parts firm announced it took a one-time charge of $3.5 million in its fourth quarter, ended June 30, to cover the cost of relocating production of its PV Trim operation in Mississauga, Ontario. PV Trim is part of subsidiary Standard Products (Canada) Ltd., also of Mississauga.
Standard Products has begun moving PV Trim production and expects to complete most of the move by mid-September, according to Gordon Shelley, operations manager for Standard Products Canada. PV Trim makes extruded and injection molded PVC trim such as body side moldings and back window moldings for Chevrolet Lumina and Chrysler LH car plants in the Mississauga area.
Shelley said Lumina parts production is going to Schenec-tady, N.Y., and Standard Products will transfer LH components to Cleveland. Mississauga now makes LH models' trim by a combination of extrusion and injection molding, which Shelley said is labor-intensive. Cleveland will use different, less labor-intensive technology, mainly based on extrusion and cutting.
As PVC operations leave Mississauga, rubber fabrication for automotive original equipment manufacturers will replace it, Shelley said in a telephone interview. Mississauga should continue to employ about 100 hourly workers as the facility switches to unspecified rubber parts. He said Standard Products' plastics operations once had more than 400 employees in Canada.
Shelley said the Mississauga operation has 10 extrusion lines and 16 injection presses. It will keep a few lines for service jobsfor earlier car models, but will warehouse most of the equipment at Port Clinton, Ohio, in case the machinery is needed in the future.
Standard Products Canada also has five rubber products operations, Shelley said. Mississauga is its only plastics operation.
Plastics News' recent injection molders survey estimated Standard Products had 33 injection presses and custom molding sales of about $20 million for the year ended June 30, 1994. PN's survey of pipe, profile and tubing extruders listed the company's extrusion sales at $245 million that year, making it the fourth-largest profile extruder in North America. It had 10 extrusion plants and 100 extrusion lines.
Standard Products reported profit of $5 million and sales of $266.2 million for the quarter ended June 30. In the year-earlier period, it had profit of $13.8 million and sales of $249.7 million. Fourth-quarter profit was hurt by several factors, including the Mississauga charge, high material prices, high launch costs and operating problems in Spartanburg, S.C., the firm said.
For the full year, sales were up by 14.2 percent to $995.9 million and profit was $20.1 million, down from $33 million.