Today marks the opening of the new manufacturing plant of Daimler Trucks North America LLC (DTNA) in Saltillo, Coahuila, in northern Mexico. The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, was on hand for the opening ceremony. The facility, which was built with an investment of $300 million, is expected to create 1,400 direct jobs and 200 indirect ones. In addition, it will generate 1,100 jobs within the local supplier industry. After breaking ground in January 2007, the facility was completed on time and within the planned budget. The plant in Saltillo covers 1.3 million square feet of space and includes a production facility, a logistics center, administration building, and a training center.
"With the new Daimler Trucks North America production plant in Saltillo, Mexico, Daimler Trucks is improving its competitive position on the North American continent over the long term," said Andreas Renschler, member of the Daimler AG board of management and head of Daimler Trucks, on February 27 during the grand opening ceremony in Saltillo.
The plant was sited in Saltillo on account of the good experiences Daimler Trucks has had in Mexico. The decision in favor of northern Mexico was also influenced by the site's significant logistical advantages, including proximity to raw material sources, suppliers, and customers, as well as good connections with the road and rail network. The plant will produce Freightliner's new flagship, the Cascadia heavy-duty Class 8 truck. The plant in Saltillo can produce up to 30,000 Cascadia trucks annually for sale in the US, Canadian, and Mexican markets. The Cascadia will be introduced on the domestic market in Mexico in late 2009.
The Saltillo plant is the second Daimler Trucks North America manufacturing facility to be located in Mexico, joining the Santiago Tianguistenco plant, which produces Freightliner-branded heavy and medium-duty trucks for domestic Mexico sales, as well as for export to Latin America, the United States, and Canada.
"We are confident that with the Cascadia from Saltillo we will be able to fulfill our customers' high expectations regarding product quality, operating costs, and reliability," said Renschler. "Saltillo offers both the manufacturing flexibility and the space for future expansion that will enable Daimler Trucks North America to respond to a rebound in the truck market."
Saltillo will set new benchmarks for efficient production processes for Daimler Trucks manufacturing facilities worldwide. The lean operations at Saltillo will also comply with high standards of quality.
The efficiency and quality standards at the Saltillo production plant are based on the Truck Operating System (TOS) of Daimler Trucks. This management system, which was introduced in all plants worldwide as part of the Global Excellence program, aims to create an extraordinarily lean plant organization. The new plant in Saltillo utilizes the most advanced lean manufacturing processes in the truck building industry today, with the goal of achieving perfect first-time quality and the highest degree of efficiency in all processes.
The highly skilled employees working at the Saltillo plant have been specially trained for their jobs in the new facility. The management team was already completely staffed two years before the construction of the facility was completed. Production personnel were selected, trained, and qualified four months before the start of production.
The Saltillo facility of course complies with the exemplary high environmental standards of Daimler Trucks North America. More than 90 percent of all residual materials and waste from the production process is recycled. Only electrically operated tugger trains are used for transportation within the plant, and energy-saving solar windows as well as an on-site water treatment center underline the high priority assigned to environmental protection at the new plant.