A new, 200,000-square-foot advanced-manufacturing Oxbo facility in Bergen will bring new jobs and new harvesters to the market.
The facility will host design and production, training programs and equipment testing all on one campus. It’s one of four U.S.-based facilities operated by the company; it will absorb the operations of old plants in Byron, Genesee County and Clear Lake, Wisconsin.
Oxbo produces harvesters for peas, green beans, beans, spinach, sweet corn, seed corn, potatoes, coffee, pistachios and more. The new facility will have three production lines compared to the one at the old Byron facility.
In his remarks at the April 16 opening, Oxbo CEO Roel Zeevat thanked supporters for the project, including state and local officials and investors in making the new facility a reality.
“The global equipment industry faces tough challenges today, and it’s important to have strong partners at your back,” Zeevat said.
The new facility isn’t just bigger, but features new equipment and capability such as laser cutting and powder coating. The Byron facility had about 150 employees but the new Bergen plant is expected to grow to 250 to 275 employees over the next few years, said Chris Chadbourne, Oxbo manufacturing director.
The new fabrication room, at 27,000 square feet, is nearly the size of the entire Byron facility at 30,000 square feet.
“It’s triple the amount of work that came out of this factory than came out of the old factory,” Chadbourne said.
No employees from the Clear Lake facility will relocate to Genesee County, meaning the company will look to hire more than 100 additional employees in the coming years as it ramps up to full capacity.
“We’ll see some significant employee growth, some great career development,” Chadbourne said.
The development opportunities include expanding the partnership with BOCES, which already has 13 co-op students working with Oxbo. The number could grow to 20 next year, Chadbourne said, with hands-on opportunities for local students in the factory.
The new space allows for better deployment of a $1.2 million welding robot that took up about half of the former weld shop at the Byron facility. The machine can handle large, time-consuming but simple welding projects, freeing up the company’s welders for the more technical tasks.
All the fabrication, welding and paint leads to the assembly lines, where the big farming equipment is finished and prepared for customer delivery – and the new training loop outside.
One of the assembled harvesters at the ribbon cutting was a pea combine, the last of its generation. Oxbo makes the only ones in the world.
“If you’ve eaten a pea, it came from our machines,” Chadbourne said.
In the offices at the front of the plant, there is a wall where patents of the different harvesting technology that Oxbo and its predecessors, including Byron Equipment, filed over the years. It sits just outside the engineering offices, signifying not just the past but the future.
“Our obligation is to make sure this facility does not just symbolize what we’ve achieved in the past, but what we’ll achieve together in the future,” said Joe Perzia, president of Oxbo. “To honor everyone who pushed us this far and provided this opportunity and privilege.”
— Steve Howe reports on suburban growth, development and environment for the Democrat and Chronicle. An RIT graduate, he has covered myriad topics over the years, including public safety, local government, national politics and economic development in New York and Utah.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Oxbo opens Bergen plant, plans to nearly double workforce
Reporting by Steve Howe, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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