Harman Professional Solutions, purchased by Samsung late last year, has announced the closing of several offices in the US and Europe. The changes will also affect 650 employees throughout Harman Professional.
“The changes we announced yesterday are the culmination of a transformation that the Professional Solutions division has been undergoing for the last two years to better serve our customers, increase our competitiveness and accelerate new product innovations”, says David Glaubke, director of public relations, global professional solutions, Harman International. “We are now consolidating certain locations acquired through acquisitions over the years to leverage the R&D, engineering, design and manufacturing operations of our other divisions and speed up our time to market.”
The changes will mean the loss of 650 positions in the United States and Europe and closing of facilities in Elkhart, Indiana, South Jordan, Utah and a few smaller locations throughout Europe that Harman has acquired over the last decade.
After these closures there will be three main centers; Northridge, California, for Acoustics; Richardson, Texas, for Electronics, DSP and Video & Control; and Aarhus, Denmark, for Lighting.
“Still, I want to emphasize that decisions like this, while necessary, are not easy to make. We have given our employees advance notification of the changes we will make over the next year to assist with the transition and will do our best to mitigate the impact to our employees and their families”, Glaubke said. “Importantly, we also will ensure that the process is completely seamless for our customers. We are very excited about the future of HARMAN Professional Solutions and believe that, with these changes, we are now aligned and structured to serve our customers better and to return to stronger profitable growth.”
