Bolzoni's Homewood manufacturing facility will wind down

Hyster-Yale Materials Handling has announced that it will move Bolzoni's North American attachment manufacturing into the company's significantly larger Sulligent, Alabama manufacturing facility over the course of 2019. This is part of a plan to expand Bolzoni's capabilities in the USA. As a result, effective January 1, 2019, the Sulligent facility will become a Bolzoni facility and Bolzoni will assume control of the current manufacturing of products. The employees in Sulligent will become Bolzoni employees on that date and report to Bolzoni leadership. The company is evaluating a number of options to make space in its Sulligent facility to allow Bolzoni to expand its product range and degree of vertical integration, as well as to reconfigure Sulligent's manufacturing competencies toward more profitable and value-added work. The manufacturing of attachments will be progressively introduced in Sulligent starting during the first quarter of 2019, and Bolzoni will phase out production at its Homewood, Illinois facility during 2019. The Homewood manufacturing facility employs approximately 70 people. It is the intention to maintain a Bolzoni distribution centre at Homewood or in the Homewood area, housing OEM and aftermarket attachments and forks, in addition to housing an onsite customer support team. There is no indication of planned redeployments of the current staff. Bolzoni intends to grow rapidly in the North American market through an industry-specific marketing focus, supported by an expanded range of highly cost-competitive products, locally produced, with reduced lead times. This investment in enhanced manufacturing capabilities provides the operational platform for this expansion. Italy's Bolzoni was acquired by Hyster-Yale Materials Handling in 2016, after a buyout of Penta Holding S.p.A., the majority shareholder of Bolzoni S.p.A.