Guardian to shut Siegel-Robert plant
AUBURN HILLS, MICH. — Guardian Automotive Corp. will close one of its newly acquired Siegel-Robert Automotive injection molding plants in Tennessee as part of a consolidation plan, cutting more than 500 jobs in the state.
The closure of the Ripley, Tenn., plant was planned prior to the acquisition in May, said Andy Killebrew, Siegel-Robert Automotive's vice president of human resources. A second injection molding plant in Ripley, employing about 350, will remain open.
There is open capacity throughout the firm's injection molding operations, and closing the Ripley South plant will help secure jobs at other sites, including at the second Ripley facility.
Siegel-Robert Automotive will begin laying off workers in July, with the plant set to close by year's end. The plant molds and chrome plates front-end grilles and other decorative exterior trim parts used on trucks and sport utility vehicles. It has seen reduced production because of the drop-off in sales of those vehicles, but Killebrew noted that the decision to close it was linked not solely to truck sales, but also a move to rationalize capacity throughout the company.
Guardian is based in Auburn Hills. Siegel-Robert Automotive is based in Fenton, Mo.
UFE blames cutbacks on auto slowdown
STILLWATER, MINN. - UFE Inc. will cut more than 50 jobs from its River Falls, Wis., injection molding plant and close a smaller plant in Stillwater, as a result of slowing automotive production in North America.
The Stillwater-based company informed workers of the cutbacks June 10, according to local news reports. UFE representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
UFE, a custom molder of gears and other precision parts for the auto, home appliance, medical, office equipment, electronics and telecommunications industries, was acquired in April by Catalina Precision Products Inc. of Canton, Mich.
LyondellBasell closing plant, R&D site
Rotterdam, Netherlands - LyondellBasell Industries AF SCA is consolidating its polypropylene compounding business by closing a plant in Texas and a development center in Michigan.
The plant in Grand Prairie, Texas, and the sales and application development center in Auburn Hills, Mich., will close by the end of the year, the company said in a June 5 news release. No job totals for either site were listed in the release. Officials at LyondellBasell's U.S. arm in Houston could not be reached for comment.
Compounding work done in Grand Prairie will be moved to a nearby plant in Mansfield, Texas; and to a new plant set to open in Altamíra, Mexico. Sales, marketing and technology efforts now in Auburn Hills will be relocated to the firm's advanced polyolefins business and development center in Lansing, Mich.
The moves were made possible by LyondellBasell's purchase of PP compounder Solvay Engineered Polymers, which was finalized in February. The Grand Prairie and Mansfield plants both had been operated by Solvay Engineered Polymers, which was a unit of Solvay SA of Brussels, Belgium. The Auburn Hills center also had been a Solvay Engineered Polymers site.
LyondellBasell is headquartered in Rotterdam.
Milacron moving HQ outside Cincinnati
CINCINNATI - Equipment maker Milacron Inc. is moving its headquarters out of Cincinnati to office space at its main production facility in Afton, Ohio, an unincorporated town near Batavia.
The move affects about 60 employees, said company spokesman Al Beaupre, and will take place in stages to be completed sometime this fall. He said Milacron headquarters has occupied leased space in downtown Cincinnati, but the firm is nearing the end of a 10-year lease.
Beaupre said Milacron began considering the future of the headquarters location eight to 10 months ago, and investigated numerous options, including staying in Cincinnati. Space was available about 30 miles away, at its existing plant, and the move ``will save us some money,'' he said.
The company was formerly known as Cincinnati Milacron Inc. but shortened its name when it sold its machine-tool business and focused on plastics machinery. Today, Milacron is a leading supplier of plastics processing machinery, technology and industrial fluids. It employs about 3,200 worldwide.
