Swiss composites specialist Gurit (Wattwil; www.gurit.com) has merged its "Engineered Structures" and "Automotive business" units into a new "Composite Components" division. Going forward, its activities will now be divided among the newly created unit – which focuses on land transportation component applications in the premium automotive, bus and rail markets – as well as "Composite Materials and Tooling".

The divisional changes will be accompanied by strategic initiatives, with the company touting plans to transform the automotive activities of its facility in Newport / UK into a technology centre specialised in product development, prototyping and the production of smaller volume speciality manufactured components. With a major contract of the UK plant set to expire, Gurit also said it would reduce the site’s headcount by between 80 and 90 by the end of April this year. The cuts, which the company expects to come at a restructuring cost of about GBP 300,000, are the result of the lower workload for manually manufactured automotive parts.

While the plans call for more small-volume manufacturing in the UK, the company intends to turn its site in Székesfehérvár / Hungary into a volume production hub for pressed and manual components with a higher degree of automated production lines and technologies. To this end, the Swiss group plans to invest close to CHF 6m (about EUR 5.7m) in the site this year to set up automated production lines for automotive components and establish a series production for future automotive projects.

Gurit only recently expanded its activities from boat construction and wind energy applications to the automotive field – largely thanks to a CHF 30m (about EUR 30m) order from an unnamed automotive manufacturer (see Plasteurope.com of 22.01.2015). The Swiss group reported a 19% year-on-year increase in sales to CHF 336m (EUR 319m) in 2014 – see Plasteurope.com of 06.02.2015.