Georgia Bags New Automotive and Aerospace Tier I Supplier

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Bebra-Iba, Germany-based AE Group AG, a Tier I supplier to the automotive and aerospace industries, began construction on a 200,000 square-foot manufacturing facility at its North American headquarters in LaGrange, Georgia’s Jim Hamilton Industrial Park, off Highway 109 (Greenville Road) this past August.

The plant will be part of AE Group’s AE Light Metals Casting GmbH & Co KG unit (Gerstungen, Germany). AE Group already has a presence in the U.S., AE Group LLC, in Romulus, Michigan, but will settle its U.S. headquarters in LaGrange.

AE Group, which is investing $15 million in the building itself and the balance of the $50 million total in equipment and machinery, expects the new plant to launch in early 2006. Choate Construction Company (Atlanta, Georgia) will construct the building’s shell on a fast-track schedule, according to construction manager John Preston. The process equipment will be supplied by the owner. Electrical and mechanical contracts are expected to go out by mid-September. Environmental provisions include scrubbers and a wastewater treatment facility.

The facility will include a high-pressure aluminum die casting line, a machining line, and will utilize efficient equipment, such as robotics and automation to produce die cast parts, and employ approximately 300 workers over the next three years. AE Group supplies DaimlerChrysler, Porsche, BMW, General Motors, Siemens, Recaro Aircraft, and Zeiss, as well as locals, Dana Corporation, Cummins Engine, and Eaton Corporation.

AE Group is a welcome respite for LaGrange that recently suffered from job losses due to the closing of two WestPoint Stevens plants there in 2004, affecting some 550 jobs and cutting 396 jobs by Inflation Systems, and 190 by Federal-Mogul, pushing LaGrange’s unemployment rate to 8.2%.

AE Group AG was formed in 1993 by Gerhard Ankenhauer and Guenter Engelbrecht when the partners bought out the former Spritzgusswerk Rhein-Main GmbH in Frankfurt-am-Main (pressure die casting), had been incorporated into the Druckgusswerk Rhein-Main GmbH in 1959, and which changed its name again with its move from Frankfurt-am-Main to Nentershausen in 1980. The company has annual sales of $200 million.

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