3M announced today that it has made the decision to close its parking manufacturing operation. The company said that it would ship product to its Value Added Resellers (Dealers) through approximately the first three months of 2015 and would honor all current contracts and warranties.
The company sent me the following:
- 3M has announced that it will transition out of its global Parking Access and Revenue Control business (formerly known as Federal APD).
- This decision is a result of 3M’s ongoing strategic portfolio management.
3M’s Traffic Safety business, which offers a wide range of high-quality solutions to customers worldwide, will focus investments in its more differentiated core product lines and will exit the Parking business, which has not met 3M’s overall business expectations. - The company is committed to fulfilling all existing contractual obligations and product warranties for its Parking products and to assisting customers and VARs (Value Added Resellers) in the upcoming transition.
- This decision does not impact any of 3M’s other product lines.
Aaron Mills with the Parking Division marketing department told me that every effort was being made to work with their customers to affect a smooth transition. He said that all existing contracts would be honored and that warranties would be supported for two years.
The decision was made because the parking business was not meeting the overall expectation 3M had when it acquired Federal APD in September of 2012. 3M has ongoing portfolio management evaluations and has just completed the evaluation of its parking business. Mills said that new orders will be taken into the first quarter and there is not a hard and fast cut off date at this time. He stressed the company would be working closely with the VARs to assist them in the transition.
The PIPs and Sirit units that were purchased with Federal APD are not affected by this decision as they have been wholly integrated into 3M.
Those people employed in the Parking Division who will be without jobs after the first of the year will be offered opportunities to ‘transition’ into other 3M divisions. “This happens all the time,” said Nan Farnsworth, Communications Manager 3M Traffic Safety and Security Division. “In a company this size there are many opportunities.”
As an aside, in 2012 I wrote the following in this blog under the heading “3M buys Federal APD”
Its not quite that simple. 3M has purchased the Federal Signal Technologies Group (FSTech) from Federal Signal Corporation. Federal APD is the parking arm of FSTech. I have pasted the news release from 3M below. I hope the fact that 3M’s John Houle (vice president and general manager, 3M Traffic Safety Systems Division) neglected to single out Federal APD in his quote isn’t a harbinger of things to come for the parking division.
You can read the entire blog post here.
Its a sad day for Federal APD’s dealers and customers. But a pretty good day for a number of revenue control manufacturers.
JVH
H/T: Dan Kupferman
One Response
As a longtime Federal APD employee, we were all apprehensive when acquired by 3M.
FAPD was a very rewarding company to work for as there was a family atmosphere that flowed into our Distribution network and end customers, allowing many of us to create life long relationships and a feeling that we were all involved together.
Many of us felt it was the beginning of the end for what we loved to do. When 3M came in, they made many promises to keep the plants open and fund various new development projects but it was all corporate double speak and the funding never happened.
It’s tragic to think that all those people that moved to Austin in 2013 will now have to find employment elsewhere.