American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings, Inc. (AAM) is expanding the Minerva, Ohio facility of its Colfor Manufacturing, Inc. subsidiary. The more than $60 million investment in building expansion, machinery and equipment will create 175 new jobs at Colfor Manufacturing facilities in the next 24 months.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the expansion, on Oct. 18, AAM Co-Founder, chairman and CEO Richard E. Dauch said, “Colfor Manufacturing was one of the first companies AAM evaluated and purchased after becoming a public company in 1999. We purchased the company because we believed in the workforce and their ability to add value and compete in the global automotive marketplace. That decision has been rewarded by a workforce that understands and has adapted to the rapidly changing, highly competitive global automotive industry.”
According to Thomas J. Szymanski, Colfor Manufacturing’s president & COO, “The investment by AAM, the flexibility of our UAW represented workforce, and the assistance from both the State of Ohio and the City of Minerva, have given all of us at Colfor a great opportunity to compete for a bright and secure future.”
When completed, the Minerva facility will incorporate more than 100 new pieces of equipment designed to provide Colfor Manufacturing with state-of-the-art machining operations. As a result, Minerva will transition from a lower volume and simple production process, to a high-volume manufacturing facility capable of routinely meeting the quality, precision and complexity of design, heat treating and machining requirements for today’s automotive industry.
AAM is a world leader in the manufacture, engineering, design and validation of driveline systems and related components and modules, chassis systems and forged products for light trucks, sport utility vehicles and passenger cars. In addition to its locations in the United States (in Michigan, New York, and Ohio), AAM also has offices or facilities in Brazil, China, England, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Scotland and South Korea.