JLG Corp wants government assistance to reopen a closed Bedford, Pennsylvania, plant.

"We are engaged in discussions with JLG," Kevin B Ortiz, communications director with the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, said last week.

JLG idled its Sunnyside Road facility in Bedford in 2001 and moved production of some scissor lift models to a Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, plant. "When we shut those facilities, that was the one we did not want to sell," JLG chairman Bill Lasky said late last month. "We knew we would have expansion needs down the road."

Lasky met Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell to discuss JLG's need for support in any reopening. "He values our business," Lasky said. "We look forward to the opportunity to go back there."

McConnellsburg-based JLG changed to more effective manufacturing processes in the relocation. "You can't equate the way we make scissors today in Shippensburg to the process and capacity we have in Sunnyside," Lasky said. "It would not be our intention to put the same products back in there. We would do some assembly and some component fabrication."

JLG's efficiency improvements equate to space savings. "We have become a USD1.7 billion company with 29 per cent less square footage that we had a few years ago," Lasky said.