Konica Minolta is Shutting Down Windsor Facility

Konica Minolta lives by the motto, “Giving Shape to Ideas.” It seems their newest idea to take shape is consolidation.

Konica Minolta is set to close their Windsor plant within the next six to 18 months, according to the company’s manager of public relations, Kristina Marchitto. The company will seek to expand its headquarters in Ramsey, New Jersey.

Marchitto said Konica Minolta does intend to still maintain a location in Connecticut as well as retain the roughly 400 employees from the Windsor facility. However, the Connecticut warehouse facilities will be relocated to the New Jersey headquarters.

“We are planning to retain and integrate all of our employees,” Marchitto said, after confirming that employees were notified of the impending consolidation of facilities via email. She noted that may require some relocation efforts.

Konica Minolta President and CEO Rick Taylor sent the email on Nov. 15 to employees at the Windsor facility. In it, Taylor said, “Upon final approval from the State of New Jersey in late-November, we plan to consolidate two existing warehouse facilities into one central warehouse in northern New Jersey.”

The email goes on to say the company hopes to provide “a smooth transition for all employees involved” and that the move will “grow and evolve” Konica Minolta.

Marchitto said there will be more information in the coming weeks about how the transition will proceed and what the employees can expect. She couldn’t comment as to whether or not Connecticut’s business and tax environment compared to that in New Jersey contributed to the company’s decision to shut down the Windsor facility.

Konica Minolta was not considered one of Windsor’s top taxpayers on the Oct. 1, 2016 Grand List, which did include CIGNA, Aetna Life Insurance and Deka Immobilioen Investment, who owns the Amazon fulfillment center.

Konica Minolta is a world provider of office equipment, business solutions and imaging equipment. They posted a 9 percent increase in second-quarter profits this year over the same quarter last year, which was down 36 percent from the previous year.