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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Full-Scale Production Ramps Up At Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited’s Franklin, Indiana, Manufacturing Hub

05/13/2015
Full-scale production started at Japan-based Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited’s newly established turbocharger manufacturing plant Franklin, Indiana.

According to the firm, the launch of production at the new base is MHI's response to anticipated growth in demand for turbochargers in the North American market amid the trend toward vehicles meeting increasingly tighter fuel efficiency standards. With the start of full-scale production at the new U.S. plant MHI has now completed its worldwide production base structure for final assembly of turbochargers, targeting an annual global production capacity of 10 million units.

The new Franklin facility has been established as a production plant of Mitsubishi Engine North America, Inc., a Chicago-based group company that markets MHI's engines and turbochargers in North America, a company spokesperson said. Under a shared factory arrangement the new dedicated turbocharger production lines have been created in a newly expanded building and an existing building where compressors for car air-conditioning systems are manufactured for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Climate Control, Inc., MHI's group company handling air-conditioning and refrigeration operations in North America. This arrangement will facilitate the pursuit of increased operating efficiency and other synergy merits.

Company officials said besides the final assembly line for turbochargers, the area in the factory exclusively used by MENA also contains storage space for both assembly components and finished products. MENA office facilities have also been incorporated. The area shared by MENA and MCCA is to be used for inspection, distribution and other related work tasks.

On the assembly floor, finished products will be produced by attaching housings and other components to the core cartridges; the cartridges are manufactured primarily at Mitsubishi Turbocharger Asia Co., Ltd., an MHI group company located in Thailand. Initially the new plant will get under way with an annual production capacity of 600,000 units; subsequently capacity will be progressively increased to 1.2 million units and beyond.

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