Card manufacturing will cease in the company's Los Angeles facility by the end of this month. Oberthur Technologies will use the facility in Los Angeles to increase its card personalization capabilities.
The company has a state-of-the-art facility In Exton, in Southeast Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia.
“This decision is part of the company's global strategy to develop centralized smart card manufacturing centers on each continent, while expanding local personalization operations,” said Martin Ferenczi, CEO of Chantilly, Va.-based Oberthur Technologies of America Corp. “This is a critical move to maintain cost competitiveness.”
The Los Angeles card manufacturing operation focused primarily on secure conventional payment cards. The Exton facility currently manufactures a full suite of secure conventional and microprocessor (smart card) payment and identification cards, including contact payment cards in the Americas, as well as contact-less payment cards, for which the company is the leading U.S. provider.
Additionally, the facility produces contact and dual interface identification cards for more than 75 federal agencies and government-sponsored programs.
The Exton facility recently completed a $15 million expansion project. The newly installed equipment includes an additional 8-color press, a short run/fast turn around press, compensating laminators, as well as embedding and milling lines. The company also added a 20,000-square-foot finishing floor.
The expanded facility is targeted to have a manufacturing capacity of more than 20 million cards a month.
The Los Angeles facility incorporates the company's West coast service center, which embosses, encodes and provides fulfillment of payment cards. The service center has added capacity for the personalization of both secure conventional and contact-less cards and greatly expanded its vault to meet the storage needs of its customers, according to the company.
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