Cummins announces expansion plans at opening of new plant

Ten months to the day after breaking ground on a new $13 million manufacturing facility, Cummins Turbo Technologies officials today celebrated its grand opening with talk of greatly expanding the facility in the not-so-distant future.

“(North Charleston) Mayor (Keith) Summey said a short time ago that he’d like to see us expand this plant within the next five years, but I don’t think his hopes are aggressive enough,” Cummins Inc. Chairman and CEO Tim Solso told factory employees who had gathered outside the 112,000-square-foot building for an early-morning ribbon cutting ceremony.

“I believe we’ll be expanding out behind this plant in two-years time, and that we’ll go from producing 200,000 turbochargers at this facility annually to 500,000 during the same period,” he said.

Solso told the plant’s red-shirted workers that his high expectations are grounded in the tremendous pent-up demand for Cummins products from a number of domestic and international manufacturers, business he told them the company just hasn’t had the capacity to handle.

“We’ve expanded here in North Charleston, we’re expanding in China, expanding in India; the reality is, we can grow as fast as you can be good,” he said.

Paul Ibbotson, Cummins Turbo Technologies’ managing director said with the opening of the new facility the company’s local work force will grow in the near term from 85 to 200 employees, with more workers added over time as the facility expands.

The plant produced its first turbo charger three weeks ago, and that product has been delivered to the customer, Ibbotson said.

“That we’ve hit the ground running while maintaining our high standard of quality is a tribute to the team effort that went into making this day a reality,” Ibbotson said. “That team included employees from other Cummins plants, the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, state and local officials, and Evans General Contracting, which did an outstanding job building this facility.”

Solso also commented on the support the company received, stressing that the support and assistance of state and local officials was critical to Cummins decision to expand here rather than to move to Mexico or to another state.

“Without the support we received, we wouldn’t be here,” he said.

But Solso also told his employees that with the benefits the company received from the community comes an added responsibility.

“We now have an obligation to give back,” he said. “I challenge you to be the most community-oriented of all Cummins plants. It’s really important that we be seen as great corporate citizens of North Charleston and the Charleston region as a whole.”