After weeks of fevered proposal-slinging, Honda announced on Wednesday that its sixth North American factory will be built in Decatur County, Indiana. The new facility will employ 2,000 workers and turn out 200,000 cars every year. Honda hasn’t yet revealed which cars will be made at the Indiana plant, but its press release says the new plant “will have the same type of flexible New Manufacturing System that is found in Honda’s other auto plants in the U.S. and Canada”. The $550 million-dollar facility will begin production in 2008.
Indiana offered Honda a buffet of incentives, including local highway improvements and funds for worker training. But from what’s known of the details, the packages offered by rival bids from Illinois and Ohio (which has two Honda plants already) were no less juicy. What seems to have won Honda over about Indiana has more to do with supply chain sense than with externalizing costs. Honda says it picked Indiana because of its proximity to auto parts manufacturers and suppliers—Indiana and the surrounding states are thick with smaller automotive component makers, notably the Anna, Ohio Engine Plant that makes 4- and 6-cylinder engines for Honda. The president of American Honda also seemed tickled about being close to the Indianapolis Speedway, where a Honda engine purred under the hood of every car in the 2006 race.
In spite of Honda’s decision to pick Indiana, Illinois and Ohio are not exactly licking their wounds. The new plant’s needs will have a ripple effect throughout the region, providing additional work for component makers and automotive parts suppliers as well as for some of the many thousands of experienced autoworkers looking at unemployment after layoffs and buyouts at Ford and GM. And the creation and design of the plant itself should extend the circle of largesse even further: Honda intends for the Decatur County plant to be its most environmentally friendly plant in North America, with minimal energy consumption, emissions, and “zero waste to landfill”, according to a company statement. Building a green plant tallies with Honda’s overall interest in creating environmentally-innovative products. Makers of green manufacturing equipment and system components must be rubbing their hands together.
Related: Honda Indiana Plant Fact Sheet (WISH TV, Indiana)
# posted by eMvoy @ 12:06 PM
