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Bourns layoffs to begin in May

JANESVILLE — A Janesville manufacturer that plans to close this fall will start laying off employees in May.

Bourns, Inc., notified the state Monday it will eliminate about 30 positions on or about May 7.

Bourns bought the automotive sensor business of SSI Technologies in June 2006. Since the acquisition, the Janesville facility at 3200 Palmer Drive served as North American headquarters of the Bourns Automotive Division.

Nearly a year ago, the company said it would close its facility in 12 to 18 months and eliminate 148 jobs.

At the time, the company attributed its plans to a slowdown in the automotive industry. Bourns employees in Janesville make sensor components for automotive customers.

The Janesville plant also is home to the division’s North American engineering and research and development activities.

Bourns, based in Riverside, Calif., plans to transfer the plant’s production to other Bourns automotive facilities in Mexico and Hungary. Engineering and research and development activities will go to a facility in Michigan.

Aside from automotive sensors, Bourns makes circuit protection solutions, magnetic products, microelectronic modules, precision potentiometers, panel controls and encoders and resistive products. In addition to the automotive sector, Bourns also supplies the telecommunications, computer, industrial, instrumentation, consumer, non-critical life support medical, audio and other sectors.

When it bought a portion of SSI’s Controls Technologies Division in 2006, Bourns acquired assets for the development and production of electric power steering torque and position sensors, and rotational speed sensors for ABS and electronic transmission applications for automotive markets worldwide.

The sale also included an SSI manufacturing plant in Chihuahua, Mexico, as well as engineering and sales offices in Novi, Mich.

The non-automotive portion of the controls division that SSI retained continues in Janesville and supplements SSI’s Sintered Specialties Division, which is a leader in stainless steel components for a variety of industries.

SSI operates out of facilities on Palmer Drive and West Court Street in Janesville.

The state’s Department of Workforce Development and the Southwest Wisconsin Workforce Development Board are providing rapid response services to affected employees.