General Motors Underway with Fort Wayne Assembly Plant Expansion

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Info Resources; Houston, Texas). In spite of the bad news that General Motors Corporation (NYSE:GM) (Detroit & Pontiac, Michigan) lost some $8.6 billion, or $15.13 per share in 2006, the automotive behemoth is not throwing in the towel yet, as it continues to forge ahead with investments in new technologies. On January 31, 2006, GM announced that it planned to invest another $35 million in an expansion of its Fort Wayne (Roanoke), Indiana plant to add a 283,500 square-foot materials sequencing operation to support the new GMT900 SUV and truck program, which was expected to add 130 new jobs to the more than 2,900 positions the plant presently employs. The expansion is the fifth since inception of the plant in 1986. The new jobs, plus several hundred more created by a still ongoing expansion project (see project below), will more than likely come from the ranks of GM employees recently laid off from other GM plants, rather than new hires.

About this time last year, IIR reported on a $175 million, 300,000 square-foot expansion project to enable the production of the new extended-cab Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks. That project will be completed in the next few months, but meanwhile, no grass is growing under GM’s feet. The company is losing no time in beginning site and infrastructure work for the new expansion. Topsoil stripping and engineered fill work is being performed as you read, and bids for cason work were due February 3rd. The area’s mild winter has helped push the project along more quickly than usual.

Ideal Contracting of Detroit, a three-time GM Supplier of the Year winner and Michigan Minority Supplier, has been chosen as the design-build contractor for the new 283,500 square-foot sequencing facility. Bids for construction of the building went out Monday, January 31st, and are due back next week.

The structural contract has been awarded to Douglas Steel Fabrication of Lansing, Michigan. Other bid packages for roofing, siding, masonry, building enclosure, plumbing, modular offices, mechanical, and electrical have already been awarded at this writing. Only minor bid packages remain to be issued.

This fast-track, 3-D model project is projected to be complete by August, shortly after which GM will begin production of the new Silverado and Sierra models. Fort Wayne Assembly is the home of production of the world’s first full-sized hybrid pickup truck. GM's first hybrid gas/electric-powered trucks were produced here in late 2003. The 2.5 million (after the two expansions this year and last, probably now over three million) square-foot plant produced about 247,000 vehicles in 2004 and approximately 261,000 in 2005. In 2004, Fort Wayne Assembly celebrated production of its four-millionth vehicle since the plant was opened in 1986. Fort Wayne is noted for its superlative record in health and safety, as well as in quality, productivity, and performance.

Production of the new gasoline and gasoline/electric models is expected to begin in late summer or early fall of this year.

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View Project Report – 11002437

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