Automotive Supplier Automodular to Open Two New Plants

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Canadian automotive Tier I supplier, Automodular Corporation (TSX:AM) (Toronto, Ontario), will open two new sub-assembly and sequencing plants before year’s end, one in Oshawa, Ontario, and the other in Lordstown, Ohio.

The plant in Oshawa, located on Thornton Street, will supply General Motors’ (NYSE:GM)Oshawa Assembly plants on Colonel Sam Drive and Park Road South, and will cover 108,000 square feet. In early May, Automodular announced that it had received an order from General Motors of Canada, Limited, to sub-assemble and sequence cockpit modules for GM Oshawa Assembly’s GMX 211/231 Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo vehicles, beginning in May 2005. Automodular currently sub-assembles and sequences cockpit modules and headliners for the GMX 210/230 Impala and Monte Carlo vehicles, which will be replaced by the new models. For Oshawa Truck Assembly, Automodular assembles instrument panels, radiator supports, and other components. Automodular supplied about 10 million assembled modules to the three GM Oshawa plants and Wilmington, Delaware, last year.

The Lorain, Ohio, plant, at 1701 Henn Parkway, will be 70,000 square feet, and will sub-assemble and sequence front horizontal, body shop T-bars and condenser radiator fan modules for the new General Motors Cobalt vehicle, which will be produced at GM’s Lordstown Assembly plant beginning in early 2005. The company expects to be doing hiring and pilot builds through this fall. Developer of the project in Lorain is Jerry Henn. Site Rep for construction is Dan Cuckovich. The plant is expected to hire 60-70 workers.

Automodular Lordstown will more than likely hire its workers from a pool of 100 or so union workers who will be losing their jobs at another local supplier, Android Industries LLC (Flint, Michigan). Android’s plant in nearby Vienna, Ohio, had been sub-assembling front suspensions, rear axles, and fan modules for the Chevrolet Cavalier built at Lordstown, but will close its Vienna plant about the same time Automodular opens its new Lordstown plant.

Lordstown and surrounding area has had more than its share of manufacturing job losses this year. In March, about 300 workers at the Lear Corporation’s (NYSE:LEA) (Southfield, Michigan) plant in Lordstown learned that the plant was closing, because GM had awarded the seating contract for its Lordstown Assembly plant to Intier Automotive Seating (Newmarket, Ontario), a division of Magna International (TSE: MGA) (Aurora, Ontario), another Canadian-based supplier, rather than to its traditional seating supplier. Lear has several plants in Ohio, and Intier has a plant in Vienna, Ohio.

Another of Automodular’s plants, in New Castle, Delaware, is hoping to win a contract to sub-assemble parts for the two new vehicles GM is planning to make in 2005 and 2006 at its Wilmington assembly plant. GM had earlier announced termination of the Saturn L-Series vehicle production at the end of third quarter 2004, a year earlier than originally planned, for which Automodular had been providing sequencing and sub-assembly services.

Automodular Corporation is a supplier of sub-assembly, sequencing, logistics, and transportation services to seven General Motor’s plants in Ontario, Michigan, and Delaware. The company has eight plants and employs over 1,000 people.

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