Symmetry Medical Announces Layoffs, Expansion

A manufacturing-related reorganization is hoped to boost efficiency for the orthopedic and surgical device firm.

Qmed Staff

Surgical instrument and orthopedic implant maker Symmetry Medical (Warsaw, IN) has announced plans to boost its manufacturing capacity at its headquarters in Warsaw while shuttering plants in New Bedford, MA and Avilla, IN.

Acquired by Tecomet back in December, the company said it made the move to boost efficiency, and noted that the goods made at its Avilla facility were similar to those it made elsewhere. Evidently neither plant did much to pad the firm's bottom line. "Both facilities have struggled to make a profit over the past several years," according to a statement released by the company.

It was something of a change in message from a December report that stated that no job cuts were planned for the hundreds of employees working at Symmetry Medical's former OEM Solutions operations in northeast Indiana.

The layoffs at the two plants will happen in shifts. The company plans on closing the Avilla plant, which employed 129 workers, by December 31, commencing the layoffs at both plants this summer. Employing 190 employees, the New Bedford plant would close by March 2016.

The manufacturing operations at the plants would be relocated to other facilities owned by the company.

Tecomet plans on offering assistance to the employees losing their jobs and will relocate some of them to other facilities.

Following the acquisition of Symmetry for $450 million, Tecomet is said to be the biggest orthopedic contract manufacturer in the world. As of December 2014, it had 18 facilities based in five countries on three continents.

Brian Buntz is the editor-in-chief of MPMN and Qmed. Follow him on Twitter at @brian_buntz.

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The company was founded in 1964.