Holset Turbochargers Sets Up for Production in Ladson

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Holset Turbochargers (West Yorkshire, UK; North Charleston, South Carolina), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cummins Engine (NYSE:CMI) (Columbus, Indiana), is investing $13 million in a 110,000 square foot building in Ladson, South Carolina, where it will produce heavy-duty turbochargers for DaimlerChrysler Corporation (NYSE:DCX) (Stuttgart, Germany; Auburn Hills, Michigan).

Holset began construction of the plant in May 2005 and plans to begin production early in 2006. The new plant will create 180 new jobs and aims to produce 200,000 heavy-duty turbochargers annually, for domestic consumption and export to Europe, Asia, India, and Brazil.

A turbocharger is a type of forced induction system that compresses air flowing into an engine, squeezing more air into each cylinder, thereby giving more power to each explosion in a cylinder, thus giving an engine more power with less gasoline usage.

In 1999, Holset consolidated its U.S. manufacturing operations in Charleston. Holset already has a plant in North Charleston, not far from the new Ladson plant, but the two plants will operate independently of each other. Ladson has become a central point for DaimlerChrysler suppliers, as home to the likes of DaimlerChrysler's subsidiary, American-LaFrance (Cleveland, North Carolina), an assembler of emergency vehicles, a unit of Freightliner LLC (Portland Oregon); MTU Drive Shafts, another DCX subsidiary; and ThyssenKrupp Gerlach, a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp AG (Berlin:TKA ) (Duesseldorf, Germany).

A number of other DaimlerChrysler suppliers are found in nearby North Charleston, on Leeds Avenue, among which are Getrag Precision Gears (Untergruppenbach, Germany; Newton, North Carolina), with two operational plants and one under construction; Behr Heat Transfer (Stuttgart, Germany; Troy, Michigan), with three plants; Cummins Engine Company, with three plants; and Robert Bosch (Stuttgart, Germany) (Broadview, Illinois), on Dorchester Road.

Holset, which was founded in 1948 and bought out in 1973, first by the Hansen Trust, and then by Cummins Engine Company, manufactures a line of turbochargers for use on everything from pickups and heavy-duty trucks to off-highway vehicles, marine vessels, and power generation sets. In 1998, Holset introduced the first sliding wall variable geometry turbocharger (VGT). The company has six worldwide locations, in the UK, Brazil, China, the U.S., and India.

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