Lucent Technologies plans to outsource parts production
Approximately 320 manufacturing jobs could be affected later this year when Lucent Technologies shifts some of its operations from its factory in Bydgoszcz to outside contractors, a Lucent official said last week.
Dorota Niemczynowicz, the spokeswoman for Lucent Technologies Poland, said that the company was conducting negotiations with both foreign and domestic firms in Poland to outsource some of its manufacturing operations in its tools and metal and plastic parts divisions. However, none of the employees at the Bydgoszcz plant will lose their jobs, she said.
"We would like to relocate the facilities and the employees (to the outsourcing firms) ... to reduce the impact as much as possible," she said.
Niemczynowicz said she could not reveal the companies that Lucent was holding talks with, adding that more details would be released after the negotiations were completed.
In addition, she said that the outsourcing would not affect any of the company's supply contracts with telecom companies and that the Bydgoszcz facility would remain open.
Lucent Technologies employs 1,300 workers in its administrative, marketing and sales offices in Warsaw and Wroclaw and at its manufacturing plant in Bydgoszcz. The Bydgoszcz factory employs 800 workers, or 62% of the company's workforce.
The Bydgoszcz plant produces digital telecommunications switches, switch-related transmission systems, telecommunications system subcomponents and cable equipment. Its metal and plastic components and 5ESS switching systems are sold domestically and to Western European countries and the United States. In Poland, the plant produces telecom equipment for Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA) and private operators. The factory also houses integration operations for testing its final products.
Officials at the New Jersey headquarters of the U.S. telecom equipment and systems manufacturing giant announced last April that the company would outsource some of its global production operations to improve its earnings and allow it to concentrate on other areas of business. The outsourcing would occur within 18-24 months, they said.
Last month, Stanislaw Szuder, the general director of Lucent in Poland, said that the parent company's decision to outsource its global manufacturing operations was a result of increasing competition in the telecom equipment sector.
"It's a kind of international strategic decision (that) was made globally, and now we are doing it country by country to see which parts can be outsourced," Niemczynowicz said.
She would not reveal how much money the company would save by outsourcing the work, but said it depended on the outcome of discussions with prospective contractors.
Outsourcing has been a trend in the telecom equipment industry during the last few years as companies have shed easily transferable manufacturing operations to focus on developing other lines of business, such as research and development and customer service.
