The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) today announced plans to establish a Dow Design & Modify Supply Chain (D&MSC) center in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
This Center will help to ensure that the Company's supply chain is optimally designed to respond to emerging social and economic trends and customer needs around the globe. This move also reflects Dow's commitment to leverage its Business Services expertise to drive more value to the market through Dow's businesses and joint ventures as the Company seeks to become a high-growth earnings company.
The announcement was made by Northern Ireland's First Minister and Deputy First Minister today at the U.S. - NI Economic Conference 2010 in Washington D.C. Hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the conference aims to encourage American business leaders to invest in Northern Ireland. Dow is working in cooperation with Invest Northern Ireland (Invest NI), the economic development agency that is part of Northern Ireland's Government.
"Selecting Belfast as the location for the expansion of our global supply chain organization is a meaningful example of our commitment to strategic investments that support our long-term business objectives while also enabling us to have a positive impact on a region and community," said Andrew Liveris, Dow Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
Dow selected Belfast as its location for a variety of reasons, including being ideally situated to access mainland Europe, the highly educated and engineering graduate pool in the region, a strong communications and transportation infrastructure, and Northern Ireland's collaborative approach across government, academia and business to economic growth opportunities. In addition, Dow has growing needs in the Middle East and Africa, which can be efficiently supported due to the relative time zone in this Center.
Alastair Hamilton, Chief Executive of Invest NI said, "This is an investment which will deliver clear benefits to all involved. Northern Ireland has the skilled workforce which will now be able to access high quality employment opportunities offered by a global leader in the chemical engineering sector. Dow can access the best talent and infrastructure to help meet its business goals. Ultimately the project will contribute to the economy, not just by providing quality jobs, but also by making other potential investors realize that Northern Ireland remains one of the most competitive places from which to grow their business."
Dow already has 12 locations and a strong customer base across the UK and plans to use this center to focus on strategic initiatives in the area of Supply Chain Design & Modify - a process for developing and managing strategic supply chain management systems for Dow business and customers.
"As a world-class global manufacturing organization, having a world-class infrastructure and supply chain capability is absolutely critical to our business," said Dave Kepler, Dow executive vice president, Business Services, CIO and CSO. "This Supply Chain Center in Belfast will help us continue to find ways to reduce time to market, speed delivery to our customers and lower costs. We're pleased to strengthen our presence in a community with world-class intellectual talent."
Source: http://www.dow.com/