Bosch facility receives an overhaul

FAIRPORT, N.Y. - A project that began two years ago to turn Bosch Security Systems’ facility here from a manufacturing plant to administrative and executive offices came to completion in late July, providing the company with ample room for future growth. Bosch invested $3 million to upgrade its facility here, home to 230 employees. It’s a group that includes management and the company’s engineering and customer service departments. The project also included developing a 4,600-square-foot testing facility for the company’s sensor-based products. The security products manufacturer began shifting away from manufacturing at its Fairport, N.Y. location two years ago. Much of that work is now done either overseas or at the company’s Lancaster, Pa., facility. The improvements come three years after Bosch first entered the North American market with its acquisitions of Detection Systems, based here, and Salinas, Calif.-based Radionics. The company bought camera product manufacturer Philips CSI, a Lancaster, Pa., company, in 2002. The actual construction work to take Bosch’s 90,000-square-foot manufacturing plant with some office space and turn it into a suitable corporate office did not begin until the beginning of this year. The end result is additional room for new employees, according to Greg Siegelman, vice president of marketing, Americas, for Bosch, and space for future growth. “We were kind of bursting at the seams,” said Siegelman, with some employees previously working out of a modular facility. Within the past year, the company has hired 40 new people, said Peter Ribinski, president and chief executive officer of Bosch. Some of those new people staff Bosch’s customer service department, which relocated from Salinas, Calif., into a single location here. “In customer service, it was more of a shift from positions in California,” he said. “We shifted these positions here in Fairport, N.Y., and it gave us more of an efficient group.” Bosch has also streamlined its distribution facilities from three separate U.S. facilities to one. Its Lancaster, Pa., facility now serves as a single distribution center for the company. It is also home to the company’s CCTV engineering team. “This is all part of consolidating the back office to make it easier for the customer to do business with Bosch and get support from Bosch,” said Siegelman.