In a realignment of its manufacturing assets, PolyOne Corp. a provider of specialized polymer materials, said it is closing production facilities including seven in North America and one in the United Kingdom. This will result in the loss of 150 jobs.
Production at the affected facilities, as well as several manufacturing lines, will be moved to a limited number of the companys more than 30 remaining plants.
"As part of our transformation process, we are committed to driving operational excellence on a global basis, which includes improving service and efficiency throughout our supply chain," said Thomas J. Kedrowski, senior vice president, operations and supply chain. "After conducting a thorough review of our entire operation, our business teams identified opportunities to further align our capacity and production assets to improve the effectiveness of our global manufacturing footprint. These changes also reflect our focus on specialization, which is shifting our portfolio away from non-value-added commodity applications toward more specialized solutions."
Raw material and energy costs are factors in the realignment. "The recent unprecedented increases in raw material and energy costs, and longer-term fundamental changes in the global economy were critical factors in our decision-making. Declining demand in markets such as housing and automotive has created a timely opportunity to remove excess capacity and address supply chain efficiencies as important steps in mitigating the effects of the current economic conditions on PolyOne and its customers," said Stephen D. Newlin, CEO.
