Boeing sells plant in Ontario

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

By JAMES WALLACE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER AEROSPACE REPORTER

As part of its broader corporate strategy to shed units that make smaller parts, The Boeing Co. said Monday that it has completed the sale of a sheet-metal fabrication plant in Arnprior, Ontario.

The sales price was not announced. The plant has about 350 employees.

The new owner is Arnprior Aerospace, a wholly owned subsidiary of Consolidated Industries, which has headquarters in Connecticut.

Boeing announced in August that it had agreed to sell the Canadian business to Consolidated.

Consolidated President John Wilbur has said that his company plans to expand the Arnprior business well beyond just a supplier for Boeing. Airbus is among those aerospace companies being courted.

"This sale will allow all employees to work for a company with a business strategy that fits with the work done at the Arnprior site, providing greater potential for these employees," Ross Bogue, vice president and general manager of fabrication for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement.

The former Boeing plant supplied precision-machined metal detailed parts and sheet-metal subassemblies, including electrical and electronic tray and shelf rack assemblies for all Boeing jetliners.

Consolidated Industries supplies forgings to Boeing and other large aerospace companies.

Boeing said the sale includes a long-term supply agreement for all parts and assemblies currently made at the Arnprior plant.

The sale is the latest involving Boeing's once vast commercial fabrication operations.

Boeing has said that kind of parts-making work can be done more economically by others, and shedding these units will allow it to focus on what it does best -- final assembly of planes rather than the making of smaller parts.

One of the parts plants Boeing sold was in Spokane. Earlier this year, Boeing sold its sizable commercial operations in Wichita, Kan.

Boeing still has a major parts-fabrication plant in Auburn, with more than 4,000 workers. The company has said it has no plans to sell that unit.

P-I aerospace reporter James Wallace can be reached at 206-448-8040 or jameswallace@seattlepi.com.

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