Plexus Corporation on August 12 announced its intention to close its Ayer, Mass., manufacturing facility. The company plans to transition products manufactured in this facility to other Plexus facilities, primarily in Neenah, Wis. The closure of the facility is expected by March 2009.
Dean Foate, president and CEO, said, "As part of our proactive, strategic planning process we have carefully evaluated the value proposition and long-term viability of each of our United States manufacturing locations to ensure we optimize capacity to deliver intelligent, profitable growth that generates ROIC in excess of our weighted average cost of capital. After this analysis, we determined that our Ayer facility was not strategically aligned with our future growth prospects. We also concluded that we could deliver greater value to our Ayer facility customers by providing services at other Plexus locations, primarily in the United States."
Ginger Jones, chief financial officer, added, "This decision will result in the separation of approximately 170 employees from the approximately 65,000-square-foot Ayer facility over the first and second fiscal quarters of 2009. We anticipate restructuring charges related to this action of approximately $2.0 million beginning in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2008. We anticipate that this closure will generate savings in the range of $4 million to $5 million annually."
Foate continued, "As a result of the hard work and dedication of our employees in Ayer, the facility has performed very well in recent years. The closure of a facility is never an easy decision and we are sensitive to the impacts on our employees, their families and the community. Yet, it is clear that a changing marketplace requires that we proactively take this action now to serve the best long-term interests of our Company and shareholders. We will continue to leverage the strength of our market sector-based strategic planning process to proactively align our footprint to meet the future needs of customers, as demonstrated by other recently announced facility expansions in the United States and other regions of the world. We will continue our quest to be the best EMS company in the world at serving customers with products in the mid- to low-volume, higher-mix segment of the market."
Plexus is an award-winning participant in the Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) industry, providing product design, supply chain and materials management, manufacturing, test, fulfillment and aftermarket solutions to branded product companies in the Wireline/Networking, Wireless Infrastructure, Medical, Industrial/Commercial and Defense/Security/Aerospace market sectors.
