The Timken Company (USA; NYSE: TKR) announced it will be closing its bearing Distribution Center in Bucyrus, Ohio.

The closing comes as Timken's bearing production has shifted toward facilities in southern U.S. states, leaving Bucyrus too far away to be effective or efficient. Timken said nearly 90% of its inbound products coming through the DCs now originate from southern plants. In addition to internal product transfer inefficiencies, finished bearings often went from southeast plants to Bucyrus and then back to customers in the southeast.

Keeping Bucyrus open would not only hurt supply chain efficiency by requiring products to be handled more often, it also increases shipping mileage and related costs by 30%, and impacts customer delivery lead times.

Bucyrus operations will be consolidated with an existing distribution center now located in Duncan, South Carolina 5251R9N7. However, the current Duncan facility is too small and Timken is looking for a larger facility nearby.

Close to 300 people will lose their jobs as a result of the Bucyrus closing, approximately 10% of whom will reportedly become eligible for retirement by the time it is closed. Eventually offsetting that job loss to some extent will be an unspecified number of additional employees needed to staff the larger Duncan distribution center.

Timken operates a manufacturing facility for industrial tapered roller bearings in Bucyrus; it is not affected by the distribution center's closing.

Closing Bucyrus, finding, equipping and transitioning the two distribution centers to the new Duncan facility could be complete by the end of 2010 or into first quarter 2011.