3M Co. has moved a unit that makes tape used in casting broken bones from Irvine to Poland.
St. Paul, Minn.-based 3M halted production of the tape at its Orange County plant earlier this month.
About 65 workers were affected by the consolidation of the Scotchcast synthetic casting tape unit to Wroclaw, Poland. Some workers were offered other jobs at 3M, said spokeswoman Donna Fleming.
The casting tape is used to create stronger casts.
The unit’s departure leaves empty 3M’s 72,740-square-foot plant at 17132 Pullman St. The factory faces the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway.
3M put the plant up for sale for $8 million.
The move of the Irvine unit is part of a wider bid to consolidate the Poland plant. 3M is said to have invested about $30 million in Poland, according to Pharma Poland News, a trade publication.
The company also moved work at plants in Pithiviers, France, and Yamagata, Japan, to the Poland plant. Production at the facility began a year ago.
Despite the demise of the Irvine plant, 3M continues to have a sizable presence in OC.
3M’s ESPE Dental Products has about 215 workers in Irvine.
“3M ESPE is not moving or leaving,” Fleming said. “We are alive and well there.”
The unit makes more than 2,000 products for general, pediatric and restorative dentistry. Its products run the gamut from tooth filling materials, adhesives, cements, tooth impression materials, abrasives and crowns.
3M ESPE is part of 3M Health Care Markets, which is among the largest of 3M’s divisions with revenue of $966 million through the first three months of this year, up 2% from a year ago.
3M ESPE is part of a dental products herd in OC that includes Sybron Dental Specialties Inc., a Newport Beach-based company that recently was bought for $2 billion by Washington, D.C.-based Danaher Corp.
Others are Glidewell Laboratories Inc. of Newport Beach and Europe’s Nobel Biocare Holding AG, which employs around 300 people in Yorba Linda making products such as dental implants,a replacement for the root of a natural tooth, which is fused to the jaw and capped with a crown or a bridge.
The sale of 3M’s Pullman plant in Irvine is being handled by John Wright and Philip Cohen, brokers in CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.’s Newport Beach office.
The building will be available in August, according to CB Richard Ellis’ Web site.
