Volvo Bulks Up Manufacturing Sector by Making Construction Equipment

• August
• 26

3:50 am construction equipment

At the Volvo Construction Equipment factory in Asheville, North Carolina, they do things big. As in a just-expanded 400,000-square-foot factory. As in building excavators 36 feet long and nearly 12 feet wide that weigh up to 87,540 pounds and cost nearly $300,000.when Clark Equipment opened it. Sweden’s Volvo Group bought it in 1987 and made it North American headquarters for its construction-equipment subsidiary. Its other U.S. plant is in Shippensburg, Pa., where it builds road-construction machinery. Until last year, the Asheville factory built only wheel loaders.

About 300 work there, an increase of about 100 since the decision was made to expand in 2006. “We started preproduction work in September for the excavators. The first one rolled off the line in November,” says Dave Million, the plant’s general manager. That one was an EC160C hydraulic excavator, one of four models–the company makes 11–assembled there. The vehicles are distributed in the U.S. and Canada. “We’re training people as we go. By the time we’re done ramping up in April, it will take less than five days to build one.” The way they’re building them also is evolving as they add more parts made at the factory. “We’re slowly localizing the excavator machines. We’ll start working on the cabs in April. But we’ll always have to import some components. We’re trying to move to about 40-50% localized.”

The factory also is evolving in its use of robotics. “We have a very sophisticated welding system for the cabs,” Million says. “We only do manual welding on the excavator frames, and we’ll be adding robotics for that. It’s more efficient, and your cycle time goes down. But you have to have enough volume to absorb the costs.” Even with more robotics, the company plans to nearly double the plant’s work force within three years. But something else has to grow first–market share. Volvo is No. 3 in the world, behind Caterpillar and Komatsu, with 14.9%. But Million believes it will increase. “That will happen as we add models.”