Nissan's New Canton Assembly Plant Attracts A Bounty Of Suppliers To Central Mississippi

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). It would be an understatement to say that the state of Mississippi is delighted with the presence of Nissan and its suppliers in the state. To date, at least ten Tier I suppliers have located manufacturing plants near the Nissan assembly plant or in neighboring counties.

Calsonic Kansei North America (Shelbyville, Tennessee) has recently opened a 150,000 sqft plant in the Ceres Industrial Park in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The plant will assemble and supply front-end modules and exhaust systems to the new Nissan Plant in Canton, Mississippi. Calsonic Kansei is also 85% finished with construction of a 25,000 sqft plant on the Nissan site in Canton. The Canton plant should be ready for equipment installation by the end of July. Total construction investment on the two plants is about $8.5 million. The two plants are expected to employ a total of 170 workers in an area that has lost many jobs in the textile and other industries over recent years, according to a spokesman of the Canton Chamber of Commerce. The Nissan plant itself is expected to employ some 4,000 workers when it reaches full production. Architects for the projects are Lee Adcock of Shelbyville, Tennessee and Copeland & Johns of Jackson, Mississippi.

Lextron/Visteon Automotive Systems, a partnership of Lextron Corporation (Jackson, MS) and Visteon Corporation (NYSE: VC) (Dearborn, MI), maker of front end and cockpit modules and automotive electrical systems, is building a $10 million, 97,500 square foot plant, which will employ 150, adjacent to the Nissan plant.

M-TEK, Inc. (Manchester, Tennessee) expects its plant on a 35-acre site in the Central Mississippi Industrial Center to be ready for equipment move-in by mid-July. It will supply interior trim components to Nissan from the 224,000 square foot plant. Construction cost is about $25 million. M-TEK will employ 150.

Johnson Controls, Incorporated, Auto Systems Group (NYSE:JCI) (Plymouth, Michigan) is building a $12 million, 180,000 square foot plant on a 40-acre site in the Canton Industrial Center, where they will employ 225. Johnson Controls is a major automotive seat manufacturer. The plant should be open this summer.

Tire & Wheel Assembly (aka T&WA) (Louisville, Kentucky) is building a $5 million, 36,000 square foot plant adjacent to the Nissan plant, and will employ 40 workers. T&WA has already secured contracts to supply Mercedes-Benz' Vance, Alabama, plant, Toyota's Princeton, Indiana, pickup truck factory, and Ford's Avon Lake, Ohio, minivan facility. With T&WA, automakers will deal with one supplier instead of three or four tire makers and various other wheel and wheel-part suppliers. Outsourcing this labor intensive, dirty work will free up 35,000 to 40,000 square feet of auto plant floor space and do away with the cost and labor associated with the inventory. It also meshes well with the industry's desire to offer more business to minority-owned firms like T&WA.

Mi-Tech Steel (Louisville, Kentucky), a supplier of process coiled steel, is building an 80,000 square foot plant in the Canton Industrial Center. Construction costs are expected to be $10-$12 million.

TKA Fabco (Windsor, Ontario, & Springfield, Tennessee) has decided within the last week to locate its new body panel plant in Tupelo, Mississippi, thus positioning itself strategically between Nissan in Canton and other automotive manufacturers in Tennessee and Alabama. A general contractor has not yet been selected.

Tower Automotive (NYSE:TWR) (Grand Rapids, Michigan) will build a 170,000 square foot facility on a 43-acre site in the Canton Industrial Center, where they will make vehicle frames for Nissan. Construction costs should be around $35 million.

Unipres USA, Incorporated (Portland, Tennessee) will construct its new plant in Forest, Mississippi. The $15 million, 150,000 square foot plant will assemble body parts trucked in from its Portland, Tennessee, plant. Unipres USA stamps and machines automotive body parts. The plant will employ 100.

Yorozu Automotive Mississippi (Vicksburg, Mississippi), a division of Yorozu America Corp. (Farmington Hills, Michigan), is building a $16.5 million, 80,000 square foot plant next door to the Calsonic Kensai plant in the Ceres Industrial Park in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where they will employ 120 workers to supply suspension components to Nissan.

Systems Electro-Coating, LLC (Jackson, Mississippi), a joint venture between PPG Industries, Incorporated (NYSE:PPG) (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and Systems Consultants Associates, Incorporated (Jackson, Mississippi), will build a $20 million, 125,000 square foot plant in the Canton Industrial Center plant adjacent to the Nissan plant. The company will apply electro-deposition primer to sheet metal components and parts.

There will also be several non-manufacturing suppliers locating in Warren County. AJA SouthStar Transport will build a $5 million, 6,000 square foot office and a 15-acre drop lot in the Central Mississippi Industrial Center, employing 65 during the first year, with plans to increase to 300. AJA SouthStar will ship goods between Nissan's Canton plant and suppliers and plants in Tennessee. IMS Autrans (a partnership of Integrated Management Services, a Mississippi minority business, and Autrans of Smyrna, Tennessee) will build a 200,000 square foot warehousing and logistics center for out-of-state suppliers, a $15 million investment, which a number of Nissan suppliers have already committed to use.