The previously announced closing of The Timken Company's (USA) aging tapered roller bearing factory in Duston, England occurred last Friday.

Duston started production for British Timken in 1942. At its peak in the early 1970's, it was the largest employer in Northampton with 4,000 workers producing all types of roller bearings for the European market. By 2000, employment was being cut from 1,100 down to 800. And by 2002, fewer than 400 worked there.

The Duston facility's future was called into question in late 2000. Timken announced that all of the product testing and development activities being performed at Duston were being pulled out and moved to a new facility in Colmar, France. The company later received the Invest In France Agency award for building the Colmar facility.

The closing was formally announced in mid-2001 as part of a global restructuring, still ongoing at Timken. At the time, Karl Kimmerling, President - Automotive, said, "The decision to close this plant did not come easily. We very much regret the impact this action will have on the lives of our associates who work at Duston. They have made innumerable contributions and have earned our respect."

Duston was originally scheduled to be phased out by mid-2003, but the shutdown was later accelerated to the end of third quarter 2002.

This past April, Timken revealed the reason for that accelerated shutdown schedule -- and where the equipment would be going. NSK Ltd. (Japan) and Timken formed a 50/50 joint venture, Timken-NSK Bearings (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. The company is building a new bearing factory in Suzhou, near Shanghai, China. Equipment from Duston is being moved to Suzhou.

Duston, like other U.K. manufacturing facilities, has been hit hard by the strength of the pound Sterling in comparison to the Euro, and by the U.K.'s refusal to adopt the Euro. U.K.-manufactured products, such as Duston's bearings, simply became too expensive in key European markets.

In addition to Timken, NSK and INA have also restructured out of many U.K. manufacturing operations. INA's CEO, Juergen Geissinger, has been blunt about the U.K.'s problems. He said, "If the U.K. does not enter the monetary union, we will need to consider future investments carefully. It will involve too many question marks."