West Virginia Lands Another Japanese Tier Supplier

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). AK of West Virginia, a newly formed joint venture between KS of West Virginia Company Limited (Ravenswood, West Virginia), a U.S. subsidiary of Kato Seisakusho Company Limited (Toyota, Aishi, Japan), and ASKA Corporation (Kariya, Aichi, Japan), will be investing $10 million to construct a new automotive parts manufacturing plant in Ravenswood. The plant will be located next door to the KS of West Virginia plant, on KS of WV Road.

Construction plans are being finalized at this time and will include about 15,000 square feet of manufacturing space and offices for the new company. Boyles & Hildreth Consulting (Ripley, West Virginia) has been chosen as designer/architect and the construction will be handled by Tri-County Builders (Evans, West Virginia). A spokesman for the company said that subcontractor bid documents were expected to go out in three to four weeks and that actual construction would begin shortly thereafter. AK plans to open the new plant in the spring of 2006 and will employ approximately 100 workers.

AK of West Virginia will stamp and assemble small to medium sized stainless steel parts for various Japanese transplant Tier I suppliers. Co-parent company KS of West Virginia, now in its tenth year of business in West Virginia, stamps and assembles smaller precision parts (such as oxygen sensors) and does injection insert molding of switches and other parts for the automotive industry as a Tier II supplier.

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