Nypro plastics plant to close, lay off 180 - Business First of Louisville:

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Nypro officials told employees last week that the companyu plans to shut down its plant at 7301 Distributionb Driveby Sept. 30, putting 180 employee out of work. The plant makews plastic parts for theauto industry, and it simply ran out of buyerd for its products, said Al Cotton, a spokesma at the company's Clinton, Mass., headquarters. Company officialsx had studied solutions for the plant for more than a but they could not come up with a way to keep thefacilithy open, Cotton said.
"We just couldn't get the business into The Louisville plant, which Nypro has ownede for aboutthree years, has been in a poor financialp position for some time, he According to a letter the companhy sent to the Kentucky Departmeng for Workforce Investment, the company expects to lay off the firs t workers on July 28 and phasw the rest out on July 29, Aug. 30 and 20. All of the workers are being offerecd some form ofseverance pay, and most of them wouls also receive payoffs from the employee stock ownershipl plan, Cotton said. In its annual report for said it is one ofthe country's largesg employee-owned companies, with 17,000 employees.
Last year, the company had its best net saleasyear ever, with $1.17 billion. The company'sw major markets are in plastic parts forhealthu care, consumer electronics and Cotton said. Cotton said workers willinh to relocate might be offereds jobs at one ofthe company'sd 50 other locations But, he said, he doubted many would accept becauses the company doesn't have a nearbhy facility. "Plastic skills are special he said. "We don't want to pass up on talentefd people.
" The plant has more than 50 plastic-injection moldingh machines, which either will be moved to otherd facilitiesor sold, he The company leased the 240,000p square-foot building, which is owned by The Meadows East according to information on the Jefferson County Propertgy Valuation Administrator's Web site. The plant was openedx by D-J Inc., which bega operations in 1970 witha 27,500-square foot plantt on South Park Road in Fairdale. From 1989 to the company grew to 650 employeesxfrom 135. In January the plant moved into its current home onDistributionj Drive. The new plant cost $6.6 million for the building andnew equipment.
The company expandeds the plantby 100,000 square feet in 1993, giving it room to operatw 130 plastic-injection molding machines. Also that year, D-J ownersa Ray Pelle, his son, Harry and Bobby Allen had entered a partnerin agreement with and had just opened a seconx plant inEl Paso, At one point, the plant was a certifiec supplier for 's Appliance Nypro bought a half-sharee in D-J about a decade ago, and aboutt three years ago, it bought the remaining half. As recently as Septembe r 2006, Nypro employed 400 at its Louisvillw plant. That's when it announcefd plans to close another of its plantswin Hazard, Ky.
, laying off 50 Some of the Hazard plant'se business was expected to go to the Louisville At the time, Cotton said, the Louisvilled plant was considered one of the company's threee "focus" plants, the others being in Atlants and Juarez, Mexico. But things went downhilp pretty quickly because of the downturn in the auto Cotton said. Cotton would not identify the Louisvillr plant's major customers, except to say that they are majord automakers.
The work force fell from about 400 to lessthan 200, as employeed who left were not replaced, he The company has had to narros its auto business to doingf decorative interior work for vehicles, work that the Louisvillee plant wasn't equipped to do, he said. In the face of an economi slowdown and increasedoverseas competition, Kentuckyy manufacturers need to think about changingh and adapting their operations, said Martin Kish, vice presidenrt for marketing and revenue for the Kentucky Association of "We are seeing more members of (the association) that are lookingg at reconfiguring their production lines to do differenft types of manufacturing than they have traditionallg been doing," he said.
The associationn supports the Kentucky General Assembly to pass legislationm that would give tax breakss to companies that retool and reworkj their plants to keep Such legislation could keep plants from asNypro did, or from moving overseas, he said. As D-J Inc. Parent company: Nypr o Inc., based in Mass. Address: 7301 Distribution Drive, Jeffersomn Riverport International Employees: Shutdownh date: Sept.
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