Factory Closings

Boeing Co. expects to make a decision by the middle of August on whether to close the Long Beach plant that produces the C-17 transport, the aerospace company said Wednesday. Although the future of the C-17 program is in doubt, "no decision has been made to close the assembly line," Boeing spokesman Rick Sanford said.

William Montgomery and more than 1,700 other central Iowa workers depend on their jobs at Maytag, a company that has worked for decades to make its name synonymous with dependability. Montgomery, 58, has spent the last 20 years of his life assembling washers and dryers, most recently the company's traditional Dependable Care models. The address of the company's headquarters is Dependability Square. Montgomery, his co-workers and the Newton community can no longer depend on Maytag.

As hundreds of people on the tarmac waved goodbye, Boeing Co.'s last 717 airliner took off Tuesday from Long Beach Airport, marking the end of 90 years of commercial airplane production in Southern California. The new twin-engine jetliner made for AirTran Airways was the 15,599th commercial or military plane built at the sprawling manufacturing complex at the airport since 1941.

Cinram International Inc. said it would close a factory in the City of Commerce that manufactures compact discs and DVDs, eliminating 350 jobs. The work will move to a plant in Pennsylvania, the Toronto-based company said. Cinram also said it would shut compact disc-making operations in Louviers, France.

Some workers brought cameras to General Motors Corp.'s Oklahoma City plant to take photographs of their workstations and co-workers before the last vehicle rolled off the line Monday. Others just brought their sadness. "It's a rough day," said GM spokeswoman Nancy Sarpolis in Detroit. "It's hard to see your co-workers go."

Boeing Co.'s finance chief said Tuesday that its endangered Long Beach factory could stay open if the company won a contract to build aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force. Under the scenario, Boeing would shift tanker production to Long Beach after the last C-17 cargo plane rolled off that assembly line, probably in 2008. About 7,000 people work on the C-17 at an assembly plant next to Long Beach Airport.

Kraft Foods Inc. said Monday that it would eliminate 8,000 more jobs, or about 8% of its workforce, and close as many as 20 production plants as it broadened an ongoing restructuring effort. The nation's largest food manufacturer said the cuts would save an additional $700 million in annual costs, atop a targeted $450 million in savings it already had hoped to achieve through a restructuring that began in January 2004. Northfield, Ill.

Applied Materials Inc., the largest maker of semiconductor-manufacturing equipment, will close five plants and offices at a cost of $212 million. Properties in Hayward, Calif., Oregon, Massachusetts, South Korea and Japan will be affected, the Santa Clara, Calif., company said. Fewer than 10 jobs will be cut, a spokesman said.

Ford Motor Co. executives said Monday that the company would close 14 factories, eliminate as many as 30,000 jobs in North America in the next six years and work to make vehicles that customers want rather than force-feed them the big trucks that the company has been most comfortable building. Although the plan is sweeping, many analysts said it might be too tame to enable the company to reassert itself in the crucial U.S. auto market.

Ford Motor Co., hurt by falling sales of sport utility vehicles, is expected to close plants and cut thousands of jobs in North America as part of a restructuring program to be announced today. Ford has refused to release details of the plan, dubbed the "Way Forward," which also is expected to include product changes and cuts to Ford's salaried ranks. Ford has about 87,000 hourly workers and 35,000 salaried workers in North America.