New facility includes a test kitchen.

The Manitowoc Foodservice Group will consolidate its oven manufacturing and related business activities in a single facility in Cleveland. The company expects the transition to be complete by the end of the year.

The 30,000-square-foot Manitowoc Ovens Group facility will produce Cleveland Steamers, Garland convection ovens, Convotherm combi ovens and Lincoln conveyor ovens from the Cleveland, Ohio facility. This part of the Manitowoc Foodservice Group will also market and distribute Manitowoc's Merrychef brand speed ovens, which the company manufactures in an expanded global manufacturing facility in Sheffield, England.

As part of the consolidation, Manitowoc will cease manufacturing operations at its Fort Wayne, Indiana, facility over the next several months. To provide continuity of support services, Manitowoc is also investing in a satellite office in the Fort Wayne area, where the Lincoln customer service and technical support teams will continue to provide support services to resellers, end users and service agencies.

In addition, Manitowoc is making a series of improvements to the Cleveland location, including new quality systems, computerized work instructions, lean work flow systems and updated warehouse operations. The new regional headquarters building will also include an expanded commercial kitchen that customers can use for menu development, equipment testing, employee training and sales training. The new kitchen will have video and audio capabilities for remote instruction and demonstrations, along with recording capabilities to support Manitowoc's growing use of web-based information solutions.