A new coating line at the company's self-adhesive labelstock factory in Nowa Wies, Poland, will increase UPM Raflatac's production capacity for film labelstock in Europe.
The €13 million investment will support the company's aim to secure cost-competitive growth in films in the long term. Start-up of the new facility is estimated for the first quarter of 2015, following which, an older film coating line in Tampere, Finland, and the siliconising line in Tervasaari will be closed.
UPM Raflatac also plans to improve productivity in its sheet labelstock business by closing sheet labelstock coating operations and reducing capacity in sheets finishing in Polinya, Spain. The sheet coating will be centralised to Nowa Wies.
These plans are expected to result in annual cost savings of about €4 million starting from 2015, and exceeding €6 million in 2016. The estimated total "personnel impact" would be a maximum of 122 positions: up to 86 in Spain and a 36 in Finland. The majority of restructuring is due to be completed by the end of 2014.
"In our film business we have enjoyed robust growth in Europe in recent years and therefore we are planning to increase filmic coating capacity in Nowa Wies," says Tapio Kolunsarka, executive vice president, UPM Raflatac. "The majority of the film market is in Central and Southern Europe, and with this capacity we will be able to serve our customers in those market areas better in future.
"After these planned changes in our manufacturing and supply chain platform in Europe, we will have a highly productive capacity serving each of our key product segments with sufficient capacity to meet the needs of the future"
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