General Motors has announced plans to open a new supplier park to support future vehicle production at its Arlington Assembly in Texas.
The new supplier park will consist of two industrial manufacturing and warehouse buildings comprising more than 1.2 million square feet. GM estimates nearly 600 of the new manufacturing and professional jobs created in these facilities will replace work previously done outside of the U.S.
“Through strong supplier and community relations, we’re able create new supplier parks to generate significant benefits to our manufacturing operations and the communities in which we operate,” says Steve Kiefer, GM's senior vice president of global purchasing and supply chain. “This new supplier park will create improved logistics efficiency and coordination, while also bringing significant employment opportunities to Arlington.”
Multi-year Supplier of the Year winner International Automotive Components (IAC) Group is one of the GM suppliers that will be introducing operations to the Arlington automotive logistics center.
“We are excited to establish this new Arlington location as one of our flagship manufacturing operations among IAC’s 22 other U.S. plants,” says Steve Miller, president and CEO of IAC. “IAC’s role as a supplier of vehicle interiors to GM extends back almost a century and this impressive new center marks a great beginning to our next century in partnership with this customer.”
GM said it been executing a strategy to create supplier parks adjacent to its U.S. manufacturing sites (already accomplished with Northpoint at GM’s Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas, Wentzville Assembly Plant in Missouri, Bowling Green Assembly in Kentucky and Fort Wayne Assembly Plant in Indiana), and will continue to expand this effort.
According to The Wall Street Journal, GM says this move was planned before President Donald Trump criticized GM’s Mexican imports.
The new park is expected to house up to 1,250 employees, including bringing more than 850 new jobs to Arlington, Texas. These new jobs are in addition to the 7,000 GM jobs and $1 billion in U.S. investments GM announced earlier this year. The park is expected to be operational in 2018.
GM currently employs approximately 4,225 people to build the class-leading Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, GMC Yukon and Yukon XL and Cadillac Escalade. GM began operations in Arlington in 1954.
“General Motors has been a part of the American Dream in Arlington from the beginning," says Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams. "In fact, the opening of the assembly plant in Arlington in 1954 was one of the key ignitors of our city’s incredible population and economic growth. And now, more than 60 years later, GM continues to be a critical foundation of Arlington’s economy."
