Doosan Bobcat North America has announced a $70 million expansion plan for its Statesville, North Carolina manufacturing facility.
The investment will see the construction of an additional 53,880 square metres of floor space, which doubles the facilities footprint. Construction is expected to begin in July, and create 250 new jobs throughout the next five years.
The expansion will allow the company to meet growing demand for all Doosan Bobcat products, including its Doosan Portable Power equipment and the growing line of Bobcat grounds maintenance and landscaping industry products.
“This level of investment demonstrates our commitment to North Carolina, which has been an important manufacturing location for us since 2008,” said Mike Ballweber, president of Doosan Bobcat North America. “We are dedicated to the continued expansion of our compact equipment line to help empower our customers to accomplish more, and our Statesville location has been an important part of this success.”
The company’s acquisition of 68 acres adjacent to the current, 92-acre campus will allow for the addition of 46,450 square metres of attached manufacturing space and 7,432 square metres of attached warehouse and distribution space.
The expansion will see the facility’s current team of 400 full-time employees will see the addition of 42 new jobs in the first two years, and up to 250 new jobs in five years.
“The City of Statesville has been extremely supportive of our plans to make further investments in our employee team, facilities and the community,” said Lance Mathern, vice president of Doosan Portable Power. “We look forward to building on the strong relationship we already have with community leaders and our neighbors. This goes beyond expanding our workforce to include our support of education and charitable initiatives that will positively impact the community for decades.”
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The hiring plan includes production, manufacturing engineering and operations positions. In addition to its operations in North Carolina, Doosan Bobcat employs about 4,500 people at 13 facilities throughout the United States.
Among its other American facilities, Doosan Bobcat has engineering, research and development centres in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Arizona; a training facility in Colorado; their North American headquarters is in North Dakota; and manufacturing facilities in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
