Minebea May Shift Bearing Production from Germany to Slovakia

Minebea Co. Ltd. (Japan) said it is considering setting up a bearing manufacturing operation in the Slovak Republic, its first in eastern Europe. Minebea and its divisions are the largest manufacturers of miniature precision bearings; the company also produces other electronic components such as electric fans, precision motors and keyboards. With no prior manufacturing presence in eastern Europe, Minebea is building a computer keyboard production facility near Bratislava, set to come online in mid-August 2004. The Bratislava move is only the company's latest effort to keep its computer components manufacturing businesses in close physical proximity to its geographically shifting customer base. As customers have moved from centers in the U.S. to the U.K. to Asia and Eastern Europe, Minebea's manufacturing facilities have had to move along with them or be left out of supply opportunities. As the Eastern European computer manufacturing industry begins to develop, Minebea will be reviewing the results from the Bratislava keyboard operation with an eye toward moving some precision bearing manufacturing to the country. Daishiro Konomi, Minebea's European GM, indicated the company will be following the Bratislava operation carefully. Minebea would like to shift some of its cost-sensitive precision bearing and motor production to Slovakia from high-cost German locations. The company's German divisions are Precision Motors Deutsche Minebea GmbH and NMB-Minebea GmbH. Both are involved in research and development, engineering, prototype construction, precision manufacturing and sales. The German manufacturing operations likely to be considered for relocation to Slovakia are the high-cost precision disk drive spindle bearing and precision electric motor and bearing manufacturing operations. While Mr. Konomi was not specific about potential locations for the bearing and component manufacturing, Slovak administrators said they are specifically encouraging three industrial parks which target foreign manufacturers. They are near Martin (near several other bearing manufacturers), Lucenec (with a new industrial park), and Presov (with an already-strong manufacturing base).