GE Transportation has announced it will invest about $35 million to establish a new production facility in Grove City, Pennsylvania, to help meet increasing demand for its remanufacturing services. Production is scheduled to begin by year-end 2012.

The new facility will be located at an existing site where GE expects to employ up to 250 workers by early 2013. The workforce will be comprised of 150 new employees and nearly 100 current employees (transferred from the current Grove City facility).

Relatedly, GE also announced it will invest an additional $37 million in the existing Grove City plant (between 2011 and 2012) to improve productivity, enhance processes, and upgrade technology.

Richard Simpson, the company's Global Services Supply Chain Operations Leader, said the new investment in Grove City "is a commitment to our customers to continue providing them with the best products, technology and services in the industry."

Plant Manager Bill Carney noted that Grove City is already home to one of the largest diesel engine manufacturers in the world. "And now it will be home to one of the largest diesel engine remanufacturing facilities as well."

Originally a site for remanufacturing operations only, GE's Grove City plant has expanded its scope over the years to build new and remanufactured products for GE Transportation and its global customers. Its total annual production of about 2,000 engines each year makes it one of the largest locomotive diesel engine manufacturing sites in the world.

According to an independent economic impact study conducted by Tripp Umbach in 2010, GE's transportation business has a total economic impact of $3.6 billion on Northwest Pennsylvania and $4.6 billion statewide.