Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems opened a new production facility at its plant in Acuña, Mexico, the company announced Wednesday.
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"We're proud to unveil this new plant, which is the physical manifestation of the move toward greater automation and high-tech assembly at our Acuña operation," says Piotr Sroka, president, CEO and COO of Bendix. "Reaching this milestone is the result of an ongoing, concerted effort over the last eight years to increase the sophistication of the operation across a range of products — and doing so with Bendix's signature product performance, quality and reliability."
The 185,000-square-foot plant will use highly automated manufacturing processes to produce global scalable brake control (GSBC) and global scalable air treatment (GSAT). Production on the new lines has started and will expand on a staggered, multiyear schedule.
The Acuña facility first opened in1988. It manufactures, remanufactures and assembles antilock braking systems (ABS), air dryers, compressors, valves, actuators and integrated vehicle modules.
"The increasing high-tech production capabilities in Acuña improve our productivity and give us the added flexibility to respond to the growing demands of our OEM and fleet customers — including meeting and exceeding their delivery expectations," Sroka says. "The new facility is the latest example of our manufacturing operations evolution — here in North America and around the globe — in step with the changing commercial vehicle marketplace."
GSBC and GSAT are brake control and air treatment module global systems designed to be adapted to customer needs. These systems improve vehicle adaptability and lay the groundwork for automated driving, Bendix says.
"In manufacturing GSBC and GSAT products, we will take advantage of the stability, knowledge, skill sets and strong quality and safety records we have cultivated here," says Jacqueline Perez, Bendix's senior director of operations in Mexico. "Also, since Acuña already builds all Bendix valves and air dryers currently, we are well positioned to manufacture GSBC and GSAT — the next generation of those products — with both the space and capability to make that happen."
The new facility is heavily automated, Perez says, and the company has established a partnership with a local university to host five students for a one-year apprenticeship in the new plant.
"We have created a rotation program covering fields like operations, quality, supply chain, manufacturing engineering and maintenance," says Reginaldo Olivo, plant manager. "This program will allow these students to develop in a working environment, gaining the necessary exposure for their future, while also providing Bendix the opportunity to prepare our future engineers."
The new plant will employ about 200 people, bringing the Acuña total to around 2,000 employees.
