SKF celebrates grand opening of new St. Louis facility

SKF this week celebrated the grand opening of its new facility in North County. This facility will serve as the North American headquarters for its Lubrication Business Unit. Located in NorthPark, near Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, the 310,000-square-foot facility includes engineering, manufacturing and testing operations, sales, marketing and administrative offices, as well as a state-of-the-art distribution center.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, SKF and local dignitaries, employees and customers attended the event, which included a ribbon-cutting ceremony, facility tours, presentations and roundtable discussions.

“SKF’s investment in Missouri is a tremendous vote of confidence in this region’s workforce and business climate,” said Gov. Nixon. “This state-of-the-art facility strengthens our position as a hub for advanced manufacturing jobs.”

In addition, North County Inc., a regional development association, presented SKF with its 2016 Business Development Award for SKF’s positive impact on economic development in the North County area. SKF was nominated for the award by the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership and was selected unanimously as the recipient.

“SKF is recognized for bringing innovative solutions to market,” said SKF Lubrication Business Unit President Robert Law. “This move helps us continue to grow and thrive as a company and provides our St. Louis employees with a new and more efficient workplace.

“Our technologically advanced distribution center features AutoStore, an automated storage and retrieval system that assists SKF employees in picking customer orders quickly and ergonomically,” continued Law. “Through use of this new system, our dedicated employees and culture of continuous improvement, we are confident that SKF can achieve even higher levels of customer satisfaction regarding order accuracy and on-time delivery.”

Development was led by CRG Real Estate Solutions and M Property Services. Construction was completed in approximately one year by Clayco, a full-service, design-build firm. Currently, the building is in the process of achieving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for sustainable building. LEED-certified buildings are resource efficient and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Robert Law, the move from the previous location is being completed in phases. Office personnel relocated in mid-October 2015, and metal-cutting equipment began being moved near the end of 2015. The relocation of manufacturing and product assembly is ongoing and expected to be completed in August 2016.

SKF is a leading global supplier of bearings, seals, mechatronics, lubrication systems, and services which include technical support, maintenance and reliability services, engineering consulting and training. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has around 17,000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2015 were SEK 75 997 million ($9.3 billion) and the number of employees was 46 635. www.skf.com

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