The Manitowoc Company intends to relocate its crawler crane manufacturing operations from Manitowoc, WI to Shady Grove, PA in the hopes of optimizing its manufacturing footprint, reducing costs and expanding margins.

The transition will begin in Q3/16 with completion anticipated by the middle of 2017. In total, this initiative is expected to generate annualized pre-tax cost savings of $25 million to $30 million.

“After a comprehensive analysis and review of our current manufacturing footprint, coupled with current market conditions, we believe this restructuring initiative will ensure that our business continues to meet and exceed the needs of our customers every day,” said Barry Pennypacker, president and CEO of The Manitowoc Company. “We further recognize that this will have a personal impact on people who have been dedicated to Manitowoc. We thank them for their contributions to the achievements of our business and are committed to treating them fairly and with respect throughout this process.”

The Shady Grove site is a 300-acre facility with proven capability in manufacturing a broad range of product lines including rough terrain cranes, truck cranes, boom trucks, industrial cranes and lattice boom crawler cranes. Since 2015, Shady Grove has been producing crawler cranes as well. Manitowoc has made significant investments in new equipment at the Shady Grove facility to augment its capacity and capability. This transition will optimize utilization of these assets with sufficient manufacturing capacity to support current and future crawler demand.

Manitowoc’s crawler business intends to maintain its product engineering and related support functions as well as its headquarters in the Manitowoc area.