12-15 month run down period.
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I'd just like to say that Christoph beyer is as much as a LIAR as BF and BM, he sat in a town hall meeting and acted like atherstone was back on track a couple of months ago and everything was looking up telling everyone the plant was doing really well and then in the meeting today he didn't have the b* to answer 1 question and passed it straight to Ben, shame on him, it was as much as him as all the others!!!!!
A warning to all my fellow 3Mers, if you hear of a BF or a BM coming to your plant, be sure that it will be the end …. Regardless if your plant is thriving !!
Post ID: @fvr+1nf8ES6e
Excellent summary!!
Hard for the people there, but if the site was not profitable, then i could see this action making sense.
In general, UK has dwindling R&D and mfg capabilities, and I suppose may unfortunately see more such cuts in future.
Aycliffe is the respirator/N95 plant, not Atherstone.
Atherstone historically made mid to lower grade sandpapers for European markets.
The basic insider story over the last few years:
- Atherstone had been on ASD and AAD's 'what do we do with it?' list for many years. Being in Europe was nice in some ways, but not all that profitable compared to London (Ontario) or Ames.
- The main maker itself is ancient. Trizact and some specialty diamond stuff was made there as well, but that was small.
- Atherstone was selected for the new Xtract discs. The projected volumes were so high that they would overload Atherstone almost instantly, hence there was a push to off-load existing products to other makers to make room.
- The Xtract scale up was a mess and exposed the many weaknesses of Atherstone's staff (both floor and management).
- Xtract volumes never materialized - The root cause of that was the ASD SVP at the time massively goosed the projections (about 5 times reality) to make herself look good for Mike Vale and Mike Roman.
- The combination of Xtract not hitting projected volume, many site issues, and already completed transfers made the decision easier, it was time to shut down Atherstone.
Not sorry for all shop floor workers and not all Managers. Some thoroughly deserve this and their actions have contributed to this, hopefully BF will now get a job that he is qualified to do, Lollipop Man, Leaflet deliverer, something like that.
The people who I feel sorry for are those are actually cared about the company and did a good job.
Unfortunately at Atherstone simply trying your best is not enough. Sone of those that tried their best should never have been given a job
Everybody from the PALs to BF and BM are utterly useless. Sea slugs would have ran it better.
So sorry for the workers on the shop-floor, 3M Atherstone used to be a great place to work under proper management.
They make Abrasives, very poor quality Abrasives, hence the place closing
I know they make some N95 respiratory products
Don't discount BG, actively looking to cut products that produced too much scrap. I was under the impression that was the point in engineering, to reduce scrap!
What products do they make there?
Agree, deliberate sabotage. Even Atherstone’s inexperienced, in qualified clowns (BF) couldn’t be as stupid to think taking away bread and butter products would be beneficial
This is sad news for Atherstone, not 3M. I cant help but thinking it was deliberate sabotage by management. Ship out all successful products and place all eggs in one basket. I believe plant management assisted the Americans closing this plant down.
The management structure within the plant created confusion, multiple engineering teams ect ect. Instead of management pulling teams together to reduce waste and downtime often the solution was to get rid of "Problem products". The management allowed a toxic blame game to take hold, with different parts of the factory failing to communicate. This is a case in how not to run a factory over many years.
Commiserations to all (excluding management) I hope you go on to better things and bounce back. All the very best.
No surprise.
BF and BM should be proud of themselves