European medical products manufacturer Coloplast Group is involved in a major restructuring and efficiency program with new low-cost plants in Hungary and China.
The Humlebæk, Denmark-based maker of special wound dressings and medical drainage urology and colostomy products is ramping up production at one new facility in Nyírbator, Hungary. Opened in September, the 216,000-square-foot unit is set to reach full capacity early next year.
The 50-year-old global supplier already has a Hungarian production unit in Tatabanya, formed in 2002, which will be expanded. In Hungary, the group is set to invest around 100 million euros ($157 million).
Coloplast also launched another new 237,000-square-foot production plant in Zhuhai, China, at the end of 2007. The $14 million facility, initially employing up to 600, is the company's second unit in China, where it first began small-scale production of medical devices 12 years ago.
In a wider program, designed to cut costs by relocating much of its Danish manufacturing further east and improve productivity, the company is halving the number of its plants in Denmark to three by 2012. Its facility in Kokkedal, dating back to 1987, has closed and the unit will be sold.
Others in Humlebæk and Kvistgaard will cease production from 2010 and 2011 respectively, according to Coloplast. Overall, it will reduce the national workforce from 1,400 to 700 by 2012.
Across the Atlantic, Coloplast is constructing a new $40 million U.S. headquarters and research-and-development center in Minneapolis. This is due to be opened early next year.
This follows the Danish group's 2006 $463 million acquisition of the urology division of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Mentor Corp.
Coloplast has a manufacturing facility in Mankato, Minn.