Improvements implemented at Cannondale's Bedford, Pennsylvania bike factory by a Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based consulting firm are allowing the company to increase productivity while simultaneously reducing labor costs and increasing production flexibility. The changes, instituted by Synergetics Installations Worldwide and Cannondale senior management after a joint four-month project, will make the company more competitive with the bike industry's numerous off-shore manufacturers, and will result in a workforce reduction of 52.
“Our parent company, Pegasus Capital Advisors, L.P., recognized significant opportunities to improve production efficiencies when they acquired Cannondale last May,” said John Doerr, Cannondale's Chief Operating Officer and President of Operations. “As we focused solely on bicycle production and learned the full extent of those opportunities, we owed it to our 650+ employees worldwide to make the right, albeit painful, decisions necessary to maximize our competitiveness.” The staff reduction was announced to employees at the Bedford factory today.
Doerr said improvements to Cannondale's operations were made on a variety of fronts. “We were able to institute process improvements and enhance the physical layout of the factory,” said Doerr. “We also improved materials flow throughout the facility, instituted new manufacturing systems, and consolidated CNC operations. The changes will not only make the factory more efficient, but also more flexible and responsive to changes in marketplace demand. The improvements are consistent with our goal of being the world's leading high-performance bicycle manufacturer, and they'll allow us to better service our dealers and customers.”
“Cannondale is the only major bike company that produces all of its bicycles here in America, and we're very proud of that fact,” added Larry Sarver, Cannondale's Vice President of Manufacturing. “Because we're paying U.S. workers U.S. wages, and our competitors are using cheap foreign labor, we absolutely have to keep our operations as lean and efficient as possible. Maximizing efficiencies and flexibility is critical to our competitiveness, and it's in the long-term best interests of our dealers, vendors and overall employee base.”
Cannondale's first plant in Bedford employed just seven workers when it opened in 1977. Today Cannondale employs approximately 500 workers in the U.S., including nearly 400 in Bedford. The company produces more than 75 different bike models at the Bedford factory and exports its bicycles and framesets to more than 70 countries worldwide.
