Quaker will consolidate
Plant will slash operating costs
By Susan M. Andrews -- Furniture Today, July 26, 2004
Fall River, Mass. — Fabric supplier Quaker Fabric has agreed to buy for $21 million or lease a 600,000-square-foot former Main Street Textiles facility here, a move it says will cut annual operating costs by about $3 million.
Quaker plans to consolidate manufacturing and warehousing operations from four other facilities into the plant.
Larry Liebenow, Quaker president and CEO, said the move "will allow for more timely movement of materials between locations and also give us more space for future growth.
"This single-story, modern manufacturing and warehousing facility, in combination with an additional investment of approximately $3.1 million in automated warehousing equipment, will allow us to consolidate several of our existing operations under one roof, reducing our annual operating costs by approximately $3 million beginning in the second half of 2005," he said.
He said the company now has about 2.1 million square feet of manufacturing and warehousing space in southeastern Massachusetts, in a number of facilities.
"By the end of next year, we plan to have moved four of the manufacturing and warehousing operations we are currently conducting in leased facilities into this new plant, leaving us with a total of 2.4 million square feet and allowing us to significantly reduce our material handling costs," Liebenow said.
He said the changes will result in a short-term increase in operating expenses of about $2.1 million over the next 12 months, including $1.6 million in moving and lease termination costs and another $500,000 related to "duplication of certain facilities-related expenses during the period."
For the year ended Jan. 3, Quaker Fabric had net sales of $325.3 million and net income of $7.9 million.
