Beko Europe has introduced the closure of two websites leading to practically 2,000 redundancies.
At a gathering in Rome with Unions on the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Beko Europe set out its long-term enterprise transformation plan for Italy after saying the deliberate closure of two websites by the tip of 2025 – in Siena in Tuscany and Comunanza close to Ascoli Piceno in Marche, in addition to the chilly line in Cassinetta close to Varese in Lombardy – which can end in some 1,935 redundancies.
The assembly comes after the one held on 7 November, which adopted the corporate’s evaluate of its European enterprise.
“The evaluate confirmed a lot of the manufacturing base to be underperforming financially, because of a difficult trade context, together with elevated competitors from gamers from Asia and weakened demand. Inside this context, present capability utilisation charges in Italy are unsustainable, dropping to a mean of beneath 40% this 12 months – 20% lower than in 2017 when European trade gross sales had been on the similar degree as at present. This has led to important losses of tens of hundreds of thousands of euros over the previous seven years,” a Beko Europe press launch mentioned.
Beko’s enterprise transformation plan
The group additionally mentioned that its enterprise transformation plan will optimise present operations and reshape the corporate’s presence in Italy to create a sustainable long-term footprint.
“Italy will probably be Beko’s centre of excellence for world industrial design in addition to world cooking, together with analysis and improvement (R&D), underpinned by an funding of €110m. The brand new funding will allow the design of latest merchandise, leveraging robotics, automation and digitalisation. Italy will stay a key decision-making centre throughout strategic features, together with HR, advertising and marketing, provide chain, IT, R&D, and product design.
“With Italy as manufacturing hub for Cooking, Beko Europe will launch a brand new suite of built-in suite of merchandise within the coming years, together with a microwave, oven and induction hobs to cowl the core and premium vary at its vegetation in Melano (AN) and Cassinetta di Biandronno (VA). Operations at each these vegetation will probably be streamlined and obtain funding to spice up automation and effectivity,” the corporate additionally mentioned.
Beko Europe mentioned its Carinaro plant will probably be maintained as the corporate’s European Spare Elements Distribution Heart, alongside the family equipment refurbishment operations launched in 2023.
“In Laundry and Refrigeration, important adjustments to present manufacturing are deliberate. Just about refrigeration, the Siena web site is not going to be the recipient of additional investments as a result of structural lack of competitiveness and collected losses over the previous 5 years within the order of tens of hundreds of thousands of euros, regardless of important investments made within the horizontal freezer class. Just about washing, the Comunanza (AP) web site, regardless of important investments obtained lately, is in important situation from the perspective of financial sustainability in the long run and the potential for sustaining operations with a sustainable degree of worthwhile manufacturing,” the press launch additionally highlighted.
Potential conversion of present vegetation
Moreover, it mentioned a reindustrialisation plan, together with the potential conversion of the prevailing vegetation, will probably be explored in each Siena and Comunanza.
“The Cassinetta di Biandronno (VA) refrigeration web site is displaying a structural lack of price competitiveness and, amongst these positioned in Italy, is the positioning that has seen the very best cumulative losses realised regardless of the substantial investments revamped the previous seven years. A rationalisation of manufacturing actions will probably be initiated on the web site, holding manufacturing energetic for 3 of the 5 traces presently in operation. Redundancies associated to the affected manufacturing models in Cassinetta, Siena and Comunanza are estimated at 1,151.”
The press launch additionally famous that, to align with Beko’s reshaped manufacturing base, it’s going to modify central features in Milan and Fabriano.
“This consists of operational and industrial roles concerned in merging the legacy corporations, in addition to the R&D groups in Cassinetta di Biandronno, Milan, and Fabriano. These adjustments purpose to take away duplicate buildings, with estimated redundancies affecting 678 positions.”
The corporate mentioned it understands that the plan introduced is tough, however it’s “obligatory to ensure a sustainable and aggressive future” for Beko Europe’s operations in Italy.