Good news from our USA business: This year will see the launch of not just one, but two major projects.
First up, we will start operation of a completely new location in the port city of Charleston, South Carolina on July 1. Charleston is a rapidly expanding region with great future potential. On an operating area of 40,000 square feet, some 30 team members will carry out sequencing activities for suppliers from the commercial vehicle. It’s a massive success for the team of our American subsidiary BLG LOGISTICS Inc. That’s because it gives the company its first major footprint outside Vance, Alabama, where it was founded in 2004.
The second milestone is that BLG LOGISTICS is making its largest investment outside Germany so far: $7.1 million will go into automation technology at the Vance location. This will establish an automated small-parts warehouse for sequencing cable sets for an automotive supplier. We already successfully operate a similar facility at our Bremen location in the LC Hemelingen. The new US plant will offer a capacity of more than 3,200 storage spaces and will move components into and out of storage fully automatically. The start-up is scheduled for July 2018. The current team will be expanded by around 70 colleagues to handle the new business.
