Bystronic glass officials announce reorganization

Officials of Bystronic glass announced several organizational changes, in response to difficult market conditions. According to a letter sent to customers,Bystronic glass is planning to merge the architectural glass core competencies with the insulating glass, laminated glass and handling equipment business sections at the location in Neuhausen-Hamberg, Germany.

All Bystronic Armatec GmbH activities will be relocated from Gunzenhausen, Germany, to Neuhausen-Hamberg to become part of Bystronic Lenhardt GmbH in mid-2012. Officials expect up to 60 positions at Bystronic Armatec GmbH will be relocated to Neuhausen-Hamberg, according to a Jan. 10 release.

The company also will cease manufacturing machinery for architectural glass cutting at the Bützberg, Switzerland, location. Officials expect that the engineering, manufacture and sale of machines for this sector will cease at the end of March 2012.The company will continue to offer service support and replacement parts for existing plants.

While Bystronic glass intends to continue manufacturing machines and plants for automotive glass preprocessing at the Swiss location, "the planned reorganization of the immediately affected locations may lead to the cutting or relocation of jobs," according to the release. Officials expect60 positions will be cut at Bystronic Maschinen AG in Bützberg.

The Bystronic glass Group Global Sales and Service Organization will remain unaltered.Bystronic Laser AG, which is independent from Bystronic glass from an organizational and financial perspective, will also not be affected.

To continue to offer customers a complete range of products, Bystronic glass will partner with German glass machine manufacturer Hegla, according to the release. The aim of this partnership will be to work together on the product and market side, and to join forces when dealing with customers who commission large-scale projects, officials said.

"The insecure economic prospects have diminished the willingness of many customers to invest or replace. This has had a very negative impact upon our incoming orders for an extended period of time now," saidAndré Brütsch, CEO, Bystronic glass, in the release.In addition, there are global overcapacities in the laminated glass business section. In combination with falling glass prices, this leads to a simultaneous high level of cost pressure and drop in margins throughout the entire sector and at Bystronic glass, according to the release.

"The competition for each order is extremely high and the margins are correspondingly unsatisfactory. In order to remain competitive, we must reduce our prices at the expense of our yield," Brütsch explained, in the release.

"The measures announced today are painful yet necessary," he continued.

As a result of the reorganization, the operational headquarters of the Bystronic glass Group will be relocated from Switzerland to Germany.

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