3 June 1999: Pilkington Libbey-Owens-Ford (LOF) announced that it is reorganizing and streamlining its automotive original-equipment manufacturing operations.
The reorganization involves closing a pl…
3 June 1999: Pilkington Libbey-Owens-Ford (LOF) announced that it is reorganizing and streamlining its automotive original-equipment manufacturing operations. The reorganization involves closing a plant in Texas, and optimizing capacity at facilities in Ontario, Canada, and Indiana. Pilkington produces automotive glass components such as windshields, side windows and back windows, as well as modular components that include value-added moulded and encapsulated features. The company will close a plant located in Sherman, Texas. The transfer of production to other facilities will begin this summer and will be completed by the fourth quarter of calendar year 2000. The transition will be managed to ensure that customer deliveries are maintained and quality expectations are met. The Sherman plant has about 400 employees. At the same time, Pilkington will invest US$ 22 million to optimize capacity at its plants in Collingwood, Ontario, and Shelbyville, Indiana. This will involve upgrading some equipment and lines and debottlenecking the production flow. The Collingwood plant produces windshields, and the Shelbyville facility produces tempered glass parts such as side windows, back windows and sunroofs. The planned process improvements will boost production capacity at Collingwood by more than 10% and at Shelbyville by more than 25%. Most of the work currently carried out at Sherman will be moved to Collingwood and Shelbyville. “These fundamental changes will help us eliminate excess capacity, debottleneck certain processes and create a more cost-effective operation that can meet the demands of the current automotive market,” said Warren Knowlton, president, Pilkington Automotive worldwide. “We have a responsibility to deploy our assets in a way that provides maximum quality, service and value for our customers.” This reorganization follows a similar move in November 1998, when the company closed a plant in Lindsay, Ontario, and consolidated its production of encapsulated glass components at two plants in Michigan. Pilkington LOF is owned by the UK-based Pilkington Group and by Nippon Sheet Glass of Japan. In addition to automotive glass components for the original-equipment market, Pilkington LOF produces glass products for the automotive aftermarket, and for building and architectural applications. Pilkington LOF sales for fiscal year 1998 (ended 31 March 1998) totalled US$ 1.1 billion.