'New beginning' foreseen for restructured PSC.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

On Tuesday, Datalogic officials shared their vision for the company's future with about 175 managers at PSC Inc., the west Eugene bar-code scanner manufacturer that Datalogic bought last year.

That vision involves splitting the company into three independent business units by April 2. The aim is to "get the focus we want worldwide and to better serve the customers in those related markets," said Bill Parnell, PSC's president and CEO.

Datalogic's vision runs counter to the popular business trend of consolidating operations - a cost-cutting strategy that PSC itself had followed until recently.

But after years of financial uncertainty, PSC is entering a new era, company officials say.

"The past 10 years have been very unstable for the company - with six CEOs and lots of organizational change," Parnell said. "Finally we've brought some stability back to the organization.

"This is a new beginning. We are moving across the bridge to global excellence together."

One of the three new business units - Datalogic Scanning - will be based in west Eugene. The other two will be based in Italy.

"It is clear that the scanning division should be headquartered in the United States," said Roberto Tunioli, CEO of Datalogic Group, based near Bologna, Italy. He noted that many of the company's most significant customers are U.S. retailers.

As part of the changes, Datalogic isn't planning cuts to its 570-person work force in Eugene. Creating the three separate business divisions may, in fact, result in some additional hiring, Parnell said.

There will, however, be a name change and shuffling of offices and staff in the next few months.

As of early April, the PSC name will disappear and be replaced with Datalogic Scanning. The scanning division, which focuses on retail scanning solutions, will operate out of the company's 110,000-square-foot campus on Terry Street in west Eugene.

Employees in order processing, customer administration, service and technical support will be moved to Terry Street from leased space in the Westec Business Park on the south side of West 11th Avenue. And about 100 Eugene-based employees who work in mobile computing will move into a 32,000-square-foot space at Westec.

PSC employees already have seen their share of change in recent years. Four years ago, a Connecticut-based private equity firm bought the financially ailing company. As part of the deal, PSC filed for bankruptcy and transformed itself from a publicly traded company to a privately held one.

Parnell, who started work in 1979 at Spectra-Physics, a company later acquired by PSC, said he's sensitive to what employees have been through. Parnell, PSC's longtime chief operations officer, returned to the company in March as CEO. He calls the upcoming changes all fairly positive.

"I think people sense that and feel that this is different," he said. "This is all about building and growing for the future."

Datalogic had sales of about $227 million for the six months ended June 30, and it has 1,800 employees worldwide.