The U.S. medical technology unit of Olympus Corp. has started consolidating its production from five separate facilities to a new, larger site in a suburb of Minneapolis.

The company on Tuesday transferred the first five of 23 production lines to the Brooklyn Park facility with plans to continue the relocation through next year. The new site will officially open next spring when the majority of operations have moved there.

Olympus broke ground on the 16,700-sq.-meter facility last December after choosing the site to consolidate the operations now at five buildings in the nearby suburb of Maple Grove.