Continental A.G.’s ContiTech business is following through on a plan it launched last year to seek “Smart Solutions Beyond Rubber” that will bring a major investment at one of its U.S. hose plants, but result in closure of a second site.
ContiTech is spending about $12 million to expand its Mount Pleasant, Iowa, USA, plant to manufacture polyvinyl chloride hose there, creating a North American PVC Center of Excellence, said Andreas Gerstenberger, global head of the Fairlawn-based Industrial Fluid Solutions business unit of ContiTech.
But while ContiTech brought good news to Mount Pleasant, the firm concurrently announced plans to shut down its Hannibal, Missouri, factory, where it currently produces PVC hose.
The investment in Iowa will add 36,000 square feet to the Mount Pleasant footprint, bringing the size of the facility to more than 200,000 square feet, and expand its North American PVC hose capacity by more than 20 percent.
(Photo: Andreas Gerstenberger (right) and Guy Enta at the NAHAD annual convention in San Antonio. Image courtesy of Bruce Meyer)