Yorktowne Casket Co. plans to open a distribution center in Harmony in a building that once was used by Tyco Healthcare as a diaper manufacturing plant.

The company, based in York, Adams County, distributes about 80,000 caskets annually to licensed funeral directors throughout the Northeast, from Lewiston, Maine, to Charlestown, W.Va., according to a company spokesman, Brian Elicker. About 20,000 of these caskets are sold to funeral homes in southwestern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio.

The distribution center in Harmony will be a major "hub," from which the company will ship the caskets to its 18 other warehouses and distribution centers. Elicker said the company chose Harmony because it's near the I-79 corridor, making it an ideal place from which to transport caskets throughout its sales territory.

Elicker said he expects the new distribution center will hire about 15 people in addition to the approximately 155 workers Yorktowne Casket currently employs.

Yorktowne Casket distributes caskets made by several manufacturers, although most of the caskets it distributes were made by the York Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Pittsburgh-based Matthews International Corp., Elicker said.