Bosal has once again demonstrated its agility and ability to make swift decisions by relocating its main AM exhaust manufacturing plant in the Ukraine in 3 weeks. 

The Russian conflict started on 24th February 2022 and although Bosal Ukraine in Zaporozhe was not directly affected by the conflict in those first few weeks, the inbound and outbound supply chains certainly were. 

On Sunday 20th March 2022, Konstantin Papashev, the Bosal Ukraine Managing Director proposed to urgently relocate his plant to Kamyanets-Podilskyi, some 650kms to the west. This proposal was immediately approved and the relocation process started. 

After finding a suitable production site and installing the necessary infrastructure, the first trucks carrying machinery, equipment and raw material left Zaporozhe in early April and three weeks later, after shipping 110 trucks and 16 railway wagons, the first production started on 3rd May 2022. 

Even more remarkable, was that 50 employees and their families relocated to the new location. The previous workforce totaled 180 employees, so key vacancies needed to be filled with newly appointed employees. 

Production output has already increased to 3,500 per week and Konstantin expects to be back at full production output before the end of July. 

A number of actions were taken to ensure availability did not suffer too much, including increasing safety stock in all our pickstocks and transferring production to other plants within the Group. 

We trust that our service levels to all our customers have not been affected too badly during the past few months and thank you for your understanding. Our availability is already back above 90% in all our pickstocks and our target of 95% availability will be reached very soon. 

We are extremely proud of our Ukrainian colleagues, led by Konstantin Papashev, who have accomplished this unbelievable task under the most extreme conditions imaginable. Their bravery, courage, loyalty and dedication is a reflection of the Ukrainian nation people and we respect them for it. 

We also mourn the loss of Ilya Strizhko, one of our welders from Zaporozhe, who made the ultimate sacrifice while defending his country. May he rest in peace.