Evans General Contractors recently delivered a die-casting plant for a major manufacturing joint venture.

Evans General Contractors is helping two of the world’s leading automotive part manufacturers join forces. The contract last year began work on a light metal die-casting plant for GF Linamar LLC, a joint venture of GF Automotive and Linamar Corp.

Located on a 57-acre site at the Ferncliff Industrial Park in Mills River, N.C., the $217-million plant will produce aluminum powertrain, driveline and structural components for the North American market. Parts produced in the plant will be used in cars manufactured in North America by a European automaker, the company says. The plant will begin operating later this year.

The plant is the first for GF Linamar LLC. GF Automotive and Linamar announced the joint venture in 2015 as an effort to combine the companies’ expertise in casting and machining.

Founded in 1966, Linamar Corp. is a publically traded company with 48 manufacturing facilities and more than 19,500 employees. The company specializes in precision machining metallic powertrain products for the automotive industry.

Within the past few years, Linamar Corp. completed a takeover of Montupet S.A., an aluminum automotive foundry group with seven plants in Europe and Mexico.

GF Automotive is a business unit of Switzerland-based GF, formerly known as Georg Fischer Ltd., which specializes in lightweight solutions for the automotive industry. The company produces more than 600,000 tons of iron, aluminum and magnesium die-castings annually at nine production plants in Germany, Austria and China, and has 5,000 employees.

‘An Ideal Location’

The new facility is located roughly 40 miles north of Greenville, S.C., where BMW U.S. Manufacturing operates a car and SUV assembly plant. Greenville next year also will be home to a new Volvo Car USA LLC plant. Several other foreign automakers have assembly plants across the Southeastern United States that serve the North American market.

In addition to GF Linamar’s investment in the operation, the plant also will be supported financially through a Job Development Investment Grant approved by the state of North Carolina’s economic investment committee. The project is eligible to receive up to $4.2 million in total reimbursements in 12 annual installments, pending verification by state agencies that the plant has met incremental goals for job creation and investment, GF Linamar says.

“We appreciate very much the warm welcome and the support from the state of North Carolina and the Henderson County authorities,” GF Automotive CEO Yves Serra said during a groundbreaking ceremony last year. “The location is ideal for us and we look forward to a prosperous future for our joint venture in the U.S.”

The region is quickly becoming a hub for Linamar Corp., which also operates three other plants there. “This is an area where we have thrived thanks to a fantastic workforce and a great business environment,” Linamar CEO Linda Hasenfratz stated. “It is rapidly becoming an important hub for us to serve our customers in the southern United States and North America overall.”

Solution Providers

Evans General Contractors operates three offices in the Southeastern United States, as well as an office in Germany. The company works in several sectors including healthcare; manufacturing; corporate and office; warehousing and distribution; institutional; and pharmacy and biotech.

Evans General Contractors’ manufacturing-specific expertise includes building automobile and aircraft plants; forging and metal-stamping facilities; wood-processing plants; chemical process facilities and engine-test cells.

“We provide comprehensive design/build and general contracting services to a wide variety of public and private corporations, institutions and commercial developers,” the company says. “We are committed to meeting our clients’ needs and exceeding their expectations by delivering quality facilities on schedule and at the most competitive prices. Our people, systems, and procedures have been carefully selected and developed to meet the technical requirements and financial parameters of our clients’ projects.”

Evans’ recent automotive sector projects include building a logistics center at BMW’s assembly facility in Spartanburg, S.C. “The expansion project, which consisted of two phases, was necessary in order to keep pace with increased production within that particular manufacturing plant,” the company says. “BMW also needed a solution to enable easy transport of materials between the site’s logistics center and the assembly plant.”

Phase one of the project included a 144,000-square-foot logistic center expansion, which required logistical support offices and 12 new dock positions. The second phase involved a 12,800-sqaure-foot expansion of the existing logistics center; four new dock positions; an elevated building connector between the assembly plant and the logistics facility; and four large freight elevators for transferring materials between the logistics center and assembly facility, Evans General Contractors adds.

(Article Source: Construction Today Staff)

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