West Hempfield Township-primarily based AHF Goods is closing its Titusville plant in western Pennsylvania and shifting select good and engineered wood flooring items to plants in West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
The move will depart 98 individuals out of operate by Oct. 30, AHF claimed in a Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification (Alert) see with the state Department of Labor & Market, a prerequisite under federal regulation when a firm anticipates a mass layoff is probable inside 60 times.
The move arrives as the flooring corporation adjusts to changing market situations and follows its acquisition of 3 flooring crops from bankrupt Armstrong Flooring in July.
“This selection was not built lightly, as we recognize the effect of a plant closure on a community this kind of as Titusville,” AHF President and CEO Brian Carson advised the condition. “Unfortunately, extra costly community lumber fees and the absence of devices to dry lumber on site does not allow for us to scale creation.”
Carson said in a assertion to LNP | LancasterOnline that “the adjust to the production footprint comes after in depth internal and external marketplace examination to align with the company’s ongoing endeavours to simplify the organization model when increasing both equally profitability and aggressive positioning.” The Titusville plant represented significantly less than 1{ae4c731f0fa9ef51314dbd8cd1b5a49e21f1d642b228e620476f3e076dd7c050} of the company’s production capability, he said.
Carson mentioned the complicated decision was a important move in boosting AHF’s other producing capabilities and paving the way for future investments that will make the organization stronger.
“The charge and support enhancements that AHF Solutions can comprehend by manufacturing the hardwood flooring produced at Titusville at our other U.S. amenities will support our enterprise and make added positions at people locations and let us to better serve our shoppers,” Carson claimed.
AHF has programs to expand its 39-acre Kankakee facility, in accordance to the Kankakee Day-to-day Journal. The organization wants to enhance Kankakee’s workforce from 290 to much more than 350 in the “not-too-distant upcoming,” Carson informed the newspaper.
In a separate statement, AHF claimed it has finalized the planned closing of its little Oneida, Tennessee, plant that manufactures flooring cleaners. The closure was announced in 2019 and is concluding in October. There are presently 4 workforce at this facility, the corporation said.
Soon after attaining the Armstrong assets, the firm now operates 9 manufacturing amenities – five wooden plants and three vinyl facilities in the U.S., like a person on Dillerville Street in Lancaster city, and a person engineered hardwood plant in Cambodia. 3 domestic distribution facilities serve shoppers as a result of a multi-channel tactic that consists of sellers, property facilities and distributors.
AHF, the wood-flooring division of Armstrong Flooring that was spun off in 2018, is owned by Dallas-centered private fairness agency Paceline Equity Associates. Since the spin-off, AHF has manufactured 4 acquisitions in the final 4 years, such as Armstrong Flooring. It has branched out into luxurious vinyl tile producing.
A couple months right before AHF acquired the Armstrong Flooring vegetation, it offered 5 of its services for additional than $60 million in a leaseback offer with Broadstone Web Lease based mostly in Rochester, New York. AHF paid out $24 million for Armstrong Flooring’s two Lancaster County amenities.
