Avon Bearings Corporation (Avon, Ohio) is expanding its facilities and gearing up to produce very large machinery bearings.

Currently, Avon manufactures large bearings up to 10 feet in diameter for heavy equipment such as cranes, large machine tools, telescopes, turntables and wind tunnels.

The company's expansion will take it into the marketplace for even larger bearings, up to 20 feet in diameter. This market in the United States is currently dominated by imported bearings.

Avon will add specialized grinding and machining centers, 15,000 square feet of high-bay manufacturing floorspace and about 20 production jobs in the expansion, expected to be complete by mid-2001.