156 electronics jobs are lost in double plant closure


30 Sep 2003

Once-proud indigenous storage technology firm Eurologic has shed 75 jobs in north Dublin as a result of the decision by its new owner Adaptec to move manufacturing to Singapore. The bad news was made worse by further reports that contract electronics manufacturer Flextronics was to close in Tullamore with the loss of 80 jobs.

It is understood that Adaptec is proposing to formally close the Eurologic Dublin facility in March 2004.

At one time one of Ireland’s proudest private technology firms, 16 year-old Eurologic was hit by the all-pervasive technology industry downturn. The company had turned in revenues of €100m by June 2002, down more than 50pc on the revenues of €258m reported in 2001. In its 16 years the company had shipped more than 148,000 storage systems to major equipment manufacturers such as Acer, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, Intel and Avid, representing more than 21,000 terabytes of data.

In March this year, Eurologic was acquired for more than US$30m in cash by Nasdaq-quoted Adaptec, which incorporated the company into its Storage Solutions Group. It is understood that Eurologic divested its storage area network (SAN) software business into a separate entity that is operating separately. “We expect Eurologic will contribute between US$60m and US$70m in revenue during Adaptec’s next fiscal year and provide a positive impact on our bottom line results by mid-year,” said Adaptec’s chief financial officer David Young at the time of the sale.

However, less than seven months after the deal went through, Adaptec has announced that it is closing Eurologic’s manufacturing operations in Clonshaugh Industrial Estate with the loss of 75 jobs. Adaptec is moving Eurologic’s network storage operations to a lower-cost manufacturing base in Singapore.

The bad news for north Dublin came within minutes of news that global contract manufacturer Flextronics has decided to shut its last remaining Irish manufacturing facility in Tullamore, Co. Offaly, with the loss of 80 jobs.

In March last year, the company decided to close its north Dublin-based manufacturing operations where it made printed circuit boards and enclosures with the loss of 300 jobs.

The news of the two plant closures came as industry lobby groups have been urging multinationals in Ireland to push themselves up the value chain into activities like R&D and virtual supply chain management as global manufacturing moves inexorably to lower-cost locations such as Eastern Europe, South East Asia and Mexico.

By John Kennedy