SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY : McDonnell Douglas Announces More Cutbacks in Its Computer Operations

McDonnell Douglas Corp., which has made cuts in its struggling Irvine computer business, said Monday that it will eliminate more jobs as it plans to spin off part of the subsidiary into a publicly held British firm and sell one of its divisions.

The aerospace giant said its Information Systems Co. in Irvine will convert a St. Louis division called Information Systems International into a British firm. McDonnell Douglas will retain partial ownership of the British firm. Jeremy Causley, now president of Information Systems Co., will become chief executive of the restructured company.

“We can’t say how many positions” will be eliminated, said Jim Ramsey, a spokesman at McDonnell Douglas headquarters in St. Louis. “We will try to place as many of those people who would otherwise be laid off at other McDonnell Douglas jobs.”

Last October, Information Systems Co. consolidated its operations and laid off about 60 Orange County workers.

The subsidiary now employs 40 people in Santa Ana and 155 in St. Louis. Its Computer Systems division in Santa Ana, which makes specialized business computers, employs 550 people, most of them in Orange County.

McDonnell also said Monday that it intends to sell its North American computer repair and service business, based in Santa Ana, later this year. The unit, another division of Informations Systems, employs 970 people, about 525 of whom work in Orange County.

Nissen Davis, a spokesman for Information Systems, said the sale of the computer repair unit “should not have any initial impact” on the local employees. “They’ll continue to do what they’re doing today,” he said.

McDonnell Douglas has been moving to narrow the focus of its money-losing Information Systems group to concentrate more on products in its core aerospace business, Ramsey said.