Pitney Bowes to cease manufacturing in Stamford US

Pitney Bowes Inc.’s changing business model will once again hit Stamford workers as the postage-meter maker ceases manufacturing within the city by the end of 2004.

Michael Critelli, Pitney Bowes’ chief executive officer, said by the close of 2004 the company will halt all assembly work at its South Side Stamford factory. Pitney Bowes has already said it will shed its component manufacturing operations as part of a two-year $100 million restructuring plan it announced in January.

The company will continue assembling postage meters, but not in Stamford, Critelli said in a phone interview yesterday.

A Pitney Bowes’ spokeswoman previously said there would be “less manufacturing” in Stamford. And earlier this month, the company discussed shuffling nonmanufacturing employees who work at the factory to other Pitney Bowes’ buildings in Stamford.

“We are looking at sometime next year at the discontinuation of assembly work in Stamford,” Critelli said. “Certainly by the end of next year, assembly work will be out of the main plant — it may be sooner than that.”

Jobs will be transferred to Newtown and Danbury, where the company has distribution centers.

Critelli did not readily have available the number of jobs that would be affected by the closing of the six-building, 850,000-square-foot manufacturing complex.

The company’s change in technology to electronic to digital mail meters — driven by a U.S. Postal Service mandate — is behind the halt of manufacturing.

The digital meters requires less labor to assemble and inkjet components are mainly outsourced from suppliers such as Brother, Canon and Hewlett-Packard, Critelli said.

As the factory workers have less and less work to do, it becomes a question of overhead, he said.

“The overhead becomes a serious cost problem,” Critelli said.

“The reality is they have been headed down this road for a number of years,” said Mayor Dannel Malloy. “We would prefer they would keep manufacturing in Stamford . . . but the nature of the company has changed.”

Malloy said he is focused on keeping Pitney Bowes in the city and has had ongoing discussions with the company for the past eight years about keeping the world headquarters here, even though the company has put the building up for sale.

“I think we will hold on to the corporate side of the business,” Malloy said.