Fuyao has been debugging equipment and training workers, and will begin its first OEM (original equipment manufacturer) product manufacturing run next week, he said.
“That is an important milestone for us,” said Gauthier, who provided area business leaders with an update of the company’s progress at a Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce breakfast event at the Dayton Racquet Club.
To date, Fuyao has hired about 450 production workers and 120 salaried staff, including engineers, supervisors and managers, for its facility at the former General Motors site in Moraine.
“We anticipate that by the end of this year our total employment will approach 1,000 people,” Gauthier said.
By the end of 2016, the Fuyao plant will employ more than 1,500 people and have capacity to produce 4 million sets of auto glass, plus an additional 4 million after-market windshields.
Currently, Fuyao produces 1.5 million sets of car glass in China for North American auto manufacturers. Most of that production will transfer to the Moraine facility as part of its total capacity.
“Product that is being supplied from China is now going to be made here in the U.S.,” Gauthier said.
Fuyao, the world’s second largest auto glass manufacturer, selected Moraine as the site for its U.S. manufacturing plant because of the existing GM facility, which reduced the project’s timetable by two years and its cost by one-third. In addition, the site’s location allows Fuyao to serve customers along the Interstate 75 auto manufacturing corridor from Detroit to Tennessee.
“Take the best of the success of Fuyao in China and the best that Dayton has to offer and put it together, and we have an unstoppable combination,” Gauthier said.
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