Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) recently began full-scale production at its newly established turbocharger manufacturing plant in Franklin, Indiana.
The new production base is MHI's response to anticipated growth in demand for turbochargers in the North American market amid the trend toward vehicles meeting increasingly tighter fuel-efficiency standards. Initially, the new plant will have an annual production capacity of 600,000 units before progressively increasing to 1.2 million units and beyond.
MHI is currently undertaking investments to increase its turbocharger production capacities worldwide, aiming for an annual global output of 10 million units. The company will further step up its efforts to respond swiftly to expanding demand for turbochargers with flexible production in North America, Europe (the Netherlands), China, Thailand and Japan.
The new Franklin facility has been established as a production plant of Mitsubishi Engine North America (MENA). Under a shared factory arrangement, the new dedicated turbocharger production lines have been created in a newly expanded building and an existing building where compressors for car air-conditioning systems are manufactured for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Climate Control (MCCA).
Besides the final assembly line for turbochargers, the area in the factory exclusively used by MENA also contains storage space for both assembly components and finished products. The area shared by MENA and MCCA is to be used for inspection, distribution and other related work tasks. On the assembly floor, finished products will be produced by attaching housings and other components to the core cartridges.
For more information, visit www.mhi-global.com/index.html.
