SKF facility shift to add 100 jobs in Lowcountry

A Swedish bearings maker that opened a repair center in North Charleston several years ago is relocating some of its U.S. manufacturing operations to the Lowcountry in a move that’s expected to more than triple its local work force.

SKF USA Inc. said it expects to invest $12.5 million and create about 100 jobs over the next few years as it shifts part of its MRC Bearings unit to Pepperdam Industrial Park off Ashley Phosphate Road from Jamestown, N.Y.

Company officials also alluded to the likelihood of a third investment in the Charleston region, but they declined to elaborate.

“We’ll be very interested in awaiting phase three,” said North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey.

The company recently built a 32,000-square-foot manufacturing facility next to its existing SKF Aero Bearing Service Center, which has about 30 employees.

The new MRC site will make precision ball bearings for the aviation industry and other industrial customers.

SKF manufacturing executive Rolf Jacobson said the company is closing one of its two Jamestown plants because the facility is more than 100 years old and is not suited to accommodate the new high-tech machining technology the company is investing in.

SKF considered other cities besides North Charleston for the relocation, but Jacobson declined to identify them. The company chose the Lowcountry based on several factors, including government incentives, the local transportation system, the available work force and the cost structure, he said.

Also, SKF felt comfortable with the area given the smooth startup of its 5-year-old service center, said Kaj Thoren, a division president.

“We found a synergy between the existing overhaul and repair business and the specialty business that made sense to expand the operations in North Charleston,” he said.

Thoren also applauded state and local efforts to develop a cluster of aerospace and aviation industries around the Vought-Alenia manufacturing complex being built near Charleston International Airport.

“This is extremely important,” he said. “The more companies and more people you can collect around Charleston … the better it will be.”

MRC has about 700 employees in New York, Connecticut and North Charleston.

It is a unit of SKF USA, which last year announced plans to close its 250-worker bearing plant in Aiken and move the work to Mexico.

The parent company is Goteborg, Sweden-based AB SKF, which is the world’s largest supplier of roller bearings and seals.

It has 100 production sites and 40,000 workers worldwide.