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The eBearing News
December 23, 2005
SKF Trims Ball Bearing Operations in France
copyright © 2005 eBearing Inc.
SKF AB (Sweden) announced a program to reorganize its SKF-SVR operations in France.
The ball bearing plant in Fontenay-Le-Comte, southwest France, will be restructured and
approximately 150 workers laid off.
SKF said the move is necessary as the plant's customers relocate from traditionally high-cost
Western European manufacturing centers to new facilities in lower-cost locations across
Eastern Europe and Asia.
Customers for SKF-SVR include Bosch, Electrolux, Siemens, Whirlpool and others on the electrical
appliance product side; Ferrari, Ford, Mitsubishi, Honda and others on the automotive side; and
Bosch and Black & Decker on the industrial side. Over 80% of the plant's production ships within Europe,
15% to Asia, and less than 5% to North America.
As its customers relocate, they have been successfully demanding that key product vendors such as
SKF follow suit and establish local supply operations. As demand shifts away, the only
option is to shrink the affected operations.
Brought online in 1971, the 25,000 square meter (270,000 square feet)
Fontenay-Le-Comte Société Vendéenne de Roulements (SVR) plant manufactures high-volume
28mm through 52mm OD ball bearings. In recent years, SKF-SVR had been running
at or near capacity, producing more than 700,000 bearings every day.
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SKF-SVR products (courtesy SKF AB)
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SVR currently employs approximately 760 workers; the layoffs will reduce that number to approximately 610.
Operating in France since 1908, SKF currently has ten manufacturing locations there, employing
more than 3,700 people. Across France, SKF has 210 industrial bearing distributors and 95
automotive bearing distributors.
France has a bewildering array of employment protection, notification and other official systems in
place, making staff reductions more difficult and expensive than many other EU countries.
SKF said the layoffs would be complete by mid-2006. The cost for the program, voluntary
retirements and related financial impacts will be in the neighborhood of SEK 190 million
(USD $24 million, or $160,000 per employee).
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- by Bruce A. Carr
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tips and commercial sources.
Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
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Entire contents Copyright 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
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eBearing.com ... for everything that moves™
Entire contents Copyright © 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
eBearing.com and "... for everything that moves" are registered trademarks of eBearing Inc.
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