NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Beckman Coulter will move its existing headquarters from Fullerton, Calif., to the nearby city of Brea by the end of 2009. The firm also is cutting 158 jobs from its Palo Alto, Calif., operations, according to a notice posted last week on the website of the state’s Employment Development Department.
Mary Luthy, a Beckman Coulter spokesperson, told GenomeWeb Daily News today that the firm is in the process of consolidating its Orange County, Calif., operations into its space in Brea, and that the firm would cease to have a presence in Fullerton once the relocation is completed.
The consolidation is part of a plan devised last year to identify areas where the firm could cut costs. Luthy said Beckman identified 100,000 square feet of wasted space in its facilities and expects it will identify even more excess space as it continues to evaluate its operations. The firm also plans to consolidate some of its West Coast warehouses into one center in Chino, Calif.
“At this time there are no planned layoffs,” associated with the relocation to Brea, said Luthy. “We have said that there may be some outsourcing or relocations.”
Luthy said that the reduction in staff in Palo Alto is part of Beckman’s plan to close its facilities there and move its centrifuge manufacturing operations to Indianapolis, which the firm announced a year ago.
She said that the job cuts would happen between now and September, as pieces of the manufacturing processes are relocated. The 158 staffers include those who decided against relocating and those who were not offered a position in Indianapolis, she said.