Bose plans to sell its manufacturing and development operations in San Luis, Mexico, and Penang, Malaysia, to Flex, which will take over current and planned Bose production in both facilities, the companies announced.
Bose will continue to own and operate existing manufacturing facilities in Tijuana, Mexico, and Framingham, Mass., where Bose is headquartered, the company told TWICE.
Bose closed its Ireland plant in 2015.
The sale is expected to close this year along with a deal to grant Bose greater access to Flex’s supply-chain solutions, which Bose said would accelerate speed-to-market around the world.
“We’ve always supplemented our owned plants with independent manufacturers, including Flex,” formerly known as Flextronics, a spokesperson told TWICE. “While we’re expanding our relationship with Flex, we’ll continue to use other independent manufacturers, and we’ll continue to use our wholly owned manufacturing facilities in Tijuana and Framingham.”
Bose has been tapping Flex’s manufacturing capabilities for more than a year, said
Bryan Fontaine, executive VP of Bose global operations. “Now we’ve chosen them to assume the work in two of our plants because their deep expertise and infrastructure will help us keep pace with our current and future product plans, and meet our projected growth in current and emerging markets,” he said. Flex meets Bose’s quality standards, he added.
Bose’s San Luis and Penang plants opened in 1990 and 2013, respectively. They produce select headphones, wireless speakers, home-theater systems and professional products. They employ a combined 3,500 employees, and under the terms of the agreement, Flex will retain the “vast majority” of the employees, Bose said.
Flex provides design, engineering, manufacturing, and logistics services to companies in various industries.
