Wolfsburg, Germany – Woodbridge has set up an automotive seating division in Europe to build its presence after its ProSeat Joint venture with Recticel ended.
Andrew Tortorella, vice president and general manager explained: 'Woodbridge has been in Europe for about 25 years and around 19 of them with Proseat. Now Woodbridge is rebranding itself in Europe as Woodbridge.
'The ProSeat is well known and we're working on the Woodbridge name. We’re pressing the reset button. Woodbridge is coming to Europe as its own name now.
The office in Wolfsburg will be assisting commercial and technical support for regions outside of Europe until we develop our strategy,' Tortorella said.
'Our main objective in the short term is to support our OEM business outside Europe. We have a lot of business in Mexico, China and some in South America,' he said.
In addition, 'we're looking for opportunities… medium term Europe is a very interesting market for us, where we locate is going to be very important. We're in the planning phase.'
The company is interested in European OEMs and tier 1 and 2 suppliers, said Tortorella. 'We are a systems and solutions supplier we talk to all levels of customer and offer them a solution. Some can be Tier 1 some are OEM and other are at a component level.'
The company is starting lean with five people on the ground in Europe. But there is the 'drive of Woodbridge behind us. That team will grow as we formulate our plan, he added.'
The company announced that it was planning a new site in at an undisclosed location in Europe in February.
Moreover, At the time it promised that in the future Woodbridge will establish a suite of product development and advanced testing/performance labs.
