Armstrong Moving Scraped Engineered Hardwood Production to U.S.

Armstrong World Industries announced it will transfer the manufacture of scraped engineered hardwood flooring from its plant in Kunshan, China to its Somerset, Ky. facility. Production will stop in Kunshan Sept. 30, and the facility will be put up for sale shortly thereafter.

“This is a business decision driven by strides in innovation and logistical realities," said Tom Mangas, Armstrong Flooring CEO. "With the increasing cost of freight and labor in China, it just makes sense to move our production here where we actually sell the product. This helps us offset raw material cost inflation, and at the same time, we eliminate several months in lead time, and we improve our response to design trends and service requirements. The Kunshan plant has performed well, but the cost and service improvements we can realize by manufacturing domestically make this the smart move for the business. This is an important step in helping us to restore our wood business to acceptable return on capital.”