BY ANDY TAYLOR

COFFEYVILLE — John Deere Coffeyville Works, formerly known as Funk Mfg., will be going through a round of job losses as the company moves its transmission production line to Waterloo, Iowa.

Ken Golden, a spokesperson with Deere & Company, confirmed that the corporation plans to relocate its production of transmission for four-wheel-drive tractors back to Waterloo, which is where the corporation builds its four-wheel-drive tractors. The transmission line was originally at the Waterloo facility.

Golden said it is unknown how much of the Coffeyville plant would be impacted by relocating the transmission production line to Waterloo. He said the transition would likely not take place until the first half of 2012.

“It is common for a company as large as John Deere to make internal moves such as this when the efficiencies of doing so are beneficial,” said Golden. “A team of employees studied this situation and made this recommendation.”

Company management notified the Coffeyville employees last week but also left open the possibility of moving other work to the Coffeyville plans.

“This new work would come both from within the company and from work that is now sourced from outside the company,” said Golden. “Because of these circumstances, our employees were told that we have not made any decisions on the size of the workforce but we are optimistic that the amount of work that could come to Coffeyville will be sufficient to retain the jobs that now exist at that location.”