For the first time in Pressalit’s 55-year history, the company has decided to establish production of plastic toilet seats outside of Denmark. In the second quarter of 2010 Pressalit expects to open the doors to a new factory in Asia. This project was initiated due to a direct request from Pressalit's largest single customer, the German company Villeroy & Boch, which about one year ago purchased the Thai ceramics company Nahm. As Pressalit is the primary supplier of seats to Villeroy & Boch’s products in Europe, it was natural that the German company wanted to have Pressalit as a partner in Thailand.
"For Pressalit, this is an important strategic partnership, providing us with an opportunity to continue our cooperation with one of our most important customers", explains the executive vice president, Dan Boyter. "If we are to deliver toilet seats to Villeroy & Boch in Thailand, it is absolutely necessary to have our production facilities in Asia. Therefore, we have now made the decision to establish operations locally."
A beachhead to new markets
With a new factory in Thailand or Vietnam, Pressalit can add to its capacity from the existing production in Denmark, thereby establishing a stronger platform for generating new growth as well as entering other attractive markets in Asia. The project is therefore, in a longer perspective, considererd to be a general beachhead to Asia for Pressalit's business, Dan Boyter explains:
"For a company like ours, it is important with growth to ensure continued development. Meanwhile, we realize that growth is very difficult to achieve on our existing markets in Europe, because here we are competing with very established competitors. However, on the new markets in Asia, we will have better opportunities to attract new customers and gain market share; therefore, we believe that a production facility in the Far East can serve as a beachhead providing access to new markets. It can strengthen our entire business and also elevate our activities in Denmark."
Not a replacement for Danish production
At the current time there are no plans for the establishment of the Asian factory to replace jobs in the production facility in the Danish city of Ry.
"The production unit in the Far East represents an expansion of capacity, not a replacement of activities currently located in Ry", Dan Boyter informs. "The new factory will still only represent a very small share in comparison to the manpower and production capacity in Denmark. So the new factory will not replace production operations in Denmark. We will also continue our strategy of continually exploring initiatives that can secure efficient production in Denmark, including new technology, new working procedures (such as Lean) and developing the competencies of our talented employees in Europe."
For further info, please contact:
Vice President & COO Dan Boyter, tel. +45 8788 8700 or mobile +45 4010 2412