Ipsen USA, Cherry Valley, Illinois, announced yesterday, July 29th, that it has been appointed as the Vacuum Technology Excellence Center for the global Ipsen organization. Ipsen USA, located west of Chicago near Rockford, Illinois, was one of the two Technology Excellence Centers announced yesterday. The other, Ipsen in Kleeve, Germany, will serve as the Atmosphere Technology Excellence Center.
According to the statement issued by Patrick McKenna, CEO of Ipsen USA, the focus on one field of technology (i.e. vacuum technologies), will enable faster-paced innovation and a sharper focus on equipment performance and quality. McKenna further noted that the global restructuring came after months of market analysis to understand the needs of the company’s customers. The resulting drivers for the organization’s global changes were a) increased customer demand for technical services, b) identical metallurgical outcomes worldwide, and c) solutions for processing newly developed materials. The establishment of these Technology Excellence Centers will allow the global organization to properly address market needs for current and future customers, as well as allow for faster response times supported by new advanced service products in all regions of the globe currently serviced by the company.
As a result of this change, new furnace equipment will be manufactured at fewer locations around the world, focusing instead on specialization. The US location will exclusively build all types of vacuum furnaces, while the Germany location will build the atmosphere batch and continuous systems. Additionally, Ipsen India will continue to build atmosphere furnaces for the India and Southeast Asia markets. The China and Japan locations will no longer manufacture new furnaces, but will continue to focus their energy on customer service and the sale of new equipment from the Excellence Centers.
The customer relationship with the company will remain unchanged as customer support will continue at all global locations. Sales, service, and support teams remain local in each region to guarantee speed of response. All plants remain open in all regions as the aftermarket support of customers is more than half of Ipsen’s annual business. Activities such as upgrades, local inventory of parts and service will continue to be fully supported on a local basis.
This consolidation of equipment manufacturing sites together with the uncertainty of the global pandemic does result in a reduction of staff, which is a regrettable but necessary outcome.
For more information, please contact Patrick McKenna, President & CEO Ipsen USA at Patrick.McKenna@IpsenUSA.com or +1 815-332-2591.
