Caterpillar closing two manufacturing plants

Caterpillar is closing its factories in Aurora Illinois and at Gosselies in Belgium, with the loss of around 3,000 jobs in all. The Aurora facility makes wheeled loaders, with production being switched over to facilities at Decatur, also in Illinois, as well as North Little Rock in Arkansas. This will result in the loss of 800 jobs at the Aurora plant although there will be more personnel required at the Decatur and North Little Rock facilities that will offset the losses Meanwhile the firm says that the
April 4, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
178 Caterpillar is closing its factories in Aurora Illinois and at Gosselies in Belgium, with the loss of around 3,000 jobs in all. The Aurora facility makes wheeled loaders, with production being switched over to facilities at Decatur, also in Illinois, as well as North Little Rock in Arkansas. This will result in the loss of 800 jobs at the Aurora plant although there will be more personnel required at the Decatur and North Little Rock facilities that will offset the losses

Meanwhile the firm says that the closure of the Gosselies site will impact on some 2,000 employees. The firm first announced that it was considering allocating production at the Belgian facility to other manufacturing plants in September 2016. However the company has now made the formal decision to close the facility, so production of its products on the site will be gradually phased out. All production is expected to cease by mid-year 2017. The other operations and functions on the Gosselies site are expected to be gradually ramped down until the end of 2017.

Caterpillar Belgium has agreed to sell the site to the Region of Wallonia. Ownership of the facility will switch to the firm Sogepa, which is an investment company of the Region. In order to support reconversion of the site, Caterpillar agreed to sell the site plus some of the installations and assets for a symbolic euro. The sale is to be effective on 30th June 2018.
Earthmoving & soil compaction Finance & Funding

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Caterpillar reports strong performance for first quarter
    April 28, 2017
    Caterpillar is reporting a strong financial performance for its first quarter results for 2017. The company has revealed higher year-over-year sales and revenues for first time in 10 quarters. The first-quarter sales and revenues were up from 2016, while the firm saw an outstanding operational performance in this period. The full-year sales and revenues outlook meanwhile has been raised to a range of US$38 billion to $41 billion.
    Read More
  • LiuGong is investing in product development and manufacturing
    October 11, 2013
    LiuGong has been investing heavily in manufacturing and product development, as well as building international distribution – vice president David Beatenbough spoke with Mike Woof One of Chinese leading producers of wheeled loaders, LiuGong has an increasingly international flavour. The company has perhaps a larger contingent of North American and European executives and employees working in China than most of its competitors in the country.
    Read More
  • Liebherr upgrading wheeled loader output
    July 17, 2024
    Liebherr is upgrading its wheeled loader production capacity.
    Read More
  • Caterpillar has a Vision that includes total project site overview
    April 5, 2016
    Caterpillar may be on its financial back foot, but a recent event showed the company has a vision far beyond this or the next financial year – David Arminas reports. Many construction machinery manufacturers have some data collection and analysis systems for their heavy equipment. For a good decade, manufacturers have been moving in this direction, first as retrofit packages on machines in the field and increasingly as standard on newer models. Caterpillar is no exception among manufacturers that are movin
    Read More

Highlighted Content