Marconi shutting down Lorain power plant

Marconi is shutting down its manufacturing plant in Lorain, Ohio, the heart of the vendor’s power plant manufacturing operations, and moving all AC/DC power conversion lines to its other North American facilities in Mexico City and St. Thomas, Canada.

Marconi will gradually phase out operations in factory over the next 18 months, eliminating about 230 jobs. The headquarters and development arm for its power division, however, will remain in Lorain, employing 300 engineers, executives, marketing and sales staff and general office workers.

“We’re not discontinuing any of our product lines-- we’re just moving production to Canada and Mexico,” said Dave Smith, Marconi executive vice president of network components. “We evaluated our capacity in our power business and we came to the conclusion that we had more capacity than demand. … This is part of a manufacturing consolidation plan to make us more cost efficient.”

Lorain Products was founded in 1936 and later acquired by Reltec, which Marconi in turn bought in 1999, gaining access to Lorain’s substantial power business. The power supply arm of Marconi is one of the largest in the world. The company had been trying to sell off the power group since early last year without success.

While Marconi has pledged to help find jobs for those displaced by the plant closure, Smith added that shutting down the plant was a difficult decision for the London-based multi-national vendor. “This was a major decision for us,” Smith said. “We have a history in Lorain of 65 years.”