Metaldyne to Close Farmington Hills Plant

Metaldyne Corporation, an Asahi Tec company, announced today it will close its Farmington Hills, Mich., plant by April 2008 to adjust for the excess capacity in its plants caused by production cuts from its North American customers.
“This was a difficult but necessary decision,” said Tom Chambers, Metaldyne president and COO.
“The Farmington Hills workforce has shown a great commitment to quality, safety and manufacturing excellence and I want to commend them. Unfortunately, we must adjust our capacity as our customers reduce their production schedules.”
The 112,000 square-foot facility has 170 employees and produces chassis and powertrain products for several customers.
These products will be moved to other Metaldyne facilities.
“We are assessing the competitiveness of our plants to see which operations can best absorb this work,” said Chambers.
“We are working closely with the UAW, which represents Farmington Hills, on this process.”
Last month Metaldyne announced plans to discontinue operations at its Greenville, NC, plant by December of this year.
That work is being moved to Metaldyne’s chassis facility in Whitsett (Greensboro), NC. Greensboro is also represented by the UAW.
“Metaldyne must be structured to be agile and efficient,” said Chambers.
“These moves will help ensure our competitiveness in the global marketplace and will help us serve our customers more efficiently.”
Headquartered in Shizuoka, Japan, Asahi Tec primarily designs, manufactures and sells ductile iron cast auto parts for truck and construction machinery OEMs, aluminum casting parts for truck and passenger car OEMs and aluminum wheels for automobile OEMs.
Asahi Tec also designs, manufactures and sells environmental systems, equipment and development technologies used by local governments and municipalities and electrical hardware and equipment used by electricity generators.
Its subsidiary, Metaldyne, is a global designer and supplier of metal-based components, assemblies and modules for transportation related powertrain and chassis applications including engine, transmission/transfer case, wheel-end and suspension, axle and driveline, and noise and vibration control products to the motor vehicle industry.
It is headquartered in Plymouth, Mich.