The company's production facility in Yokohama, Japan, has been sold and will be closed. Epiroc's customer centre will be relocated in the Yokohama area to keep supporting customers in Japan with product and application know-how as well as to provide overhauls, rebuilds, and upgrades of their existing fleets.

In Nanjing, the manufacturing will benefit from larger-scale production, sourcing, and logistics infrastructure, which will increase efficiency. The Yokohama production facility, with about 50 employees, will be closed by mid-2023.

"We continuously strive to increase operational excellence, and this move will improve our long-term competitiveness and agility," says Helena Hedblom, Epiroc's president and CEO. "Our facility in Nanjing provides clear benefits with its significant infrastructure for production, sourcing, and logistics. We are saddened that this will affect some of our colleagues in Japan."

The production and development that will be relocated is part of Epiroc's PowerROC range of equipment used for drill and blast applications in construction, such as the PowerROC T25 surface drill rig.