Bobcat Opens New Plant for Europe

Bobcat has opened the company's first newly-built manufacturing plant outside the USA at Dobris, about 35 km southwest of Prague, to serve markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Together with the establishment of a design and engineering facility in Dobris, the new plant is part of a strategy of ‘closeness to the customer'.

Scott Nelson, president of Bobcat Europe, commented: "Listening to the voice of the customer in this part of the world is essential in order to meet their specific needs. We are investing in local sourcing and engineering talent to help design the products to meet the local requirements. My principal responsibility has been to accelerate these activities to a fully integrated structure based in Europe capable of defining, designing and manufacturing machines, products and services to meet the specific needs of our local markets."

Covering an area of more than 20 000 m², the new plant is used for the fabrication, welding, painting and assembly of Bobcat small and mid-size compact loaders, mini-excavators up to 2 tonne in operating weight and a variety of attachments.

The total initial investment, nearly $32 million, includes as well a new training centre adjacent to the plant, with four rooms covering 380 m², a workshop, and outdoors training area covering 5 000 m².

Together with the existing plant at Pont-Château in France, which manufactures telehandler products, the new Dobris plant establishes a prominent manufacturing footprint in Europe for Bobcat. The company intends to have 80% of the products marketed in EMEA sourced in Europe by the end of 2008.

Built with growth in mind, the Dobris plant can be expanded in two directions to increase floorspace by 54% to over 31 100 m².

The decision to build the new manufacturing and training facilities in the Czech Republic was made after a detailed study of market developments in North America and EMEA. The new plant in Dobris frees up manufacturing space in the Bobcat compact equipment plants in Gwinner and Bismarck, North Dakota, needed for production of large-frame loaders, the mid and large size mini-excavators, as well as new products, such as the Toolcat Utility Work Machine.

Bobcat
250 E. Beaton Drive
P.O. Box 6000
West Fargo,
ND 58078-6000
USA

T: 701/241-8700