Dräxlmaier earmarks $22.35 million for Duncan facility

22. June 2011 Vilsbiburg (Germany) / Duncan, June 22, 2011. – DAA Draexlmaier Automotive of America LLC, an affiliate of the Dräxlmaier Group, will invest a total of $22.35 million over the next five years for upgrades to its facility at 1751 East Main Street in Duncan, S.C.

    The investment includes the previously announced addition of a $10 million, 64,500 sq. foot (6,000 sq. meter) production building to the existing facility, as well as upgrades to the plant infrastructure and equipment. The expansion alone is expected to create 150 new jobs – 50 more than initially planned.

    “We are committed to growing our North American business,” said company chairman and CEO Fritz Dräxlmaier at the corporate headquarters in Vilsbiburg, Germany. “This investment is sending the clear message that our main focus is on the U.S. market and our U.S. customers.”

    The announcement was made today in the presence of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley who was visiting the Dräxlmaier corporate headquarters together with S.C. Secretary of Commerce Bobby Hitt and Ian Forbes-Jones, managing director of the State of South Carolina Europe Office in Munich, Germany.

    “Dräxlmaier has been an important part of our state’s business community for more than a decade,” Haley said. “We appreciate everything you do in South Carolina and are ex-cited to see your company grow and create jobs here.”

    The new production hall will expand the plant’s capacity by more than a third and house state-of-the-art equipment and cutting-edge technology for the assembly of vehicle interiors and components, including instrument panels, center con-soles and door panels.

    “We want to achieve a sustainable growth in North America,” said Dr. Hubertus Tuczek, board member of the Dräxlmaier Group. “This investment will allow us to further enhance our competences as well as our customer and product portfolio in the region.”

    Construction of the building addition has been underway since early March and is expected to be completed by mid-September. The addition was designed by Germany-based DELTA ImmoTec GmbH. Local contractors include Context Design Group PLLC of Greenville, S.C.; MB Kahn Construc-tion Company of Greenville, S.C.; Paragon Engineering & Geosciences LLC of Greenville, S.C.; and Collins Hammett Construction LLC of Greer, S.C.

    “Our Duncan plant plays an important strategic role for our North America business,” said Karl Wallner, board member of the Dräxlmaier Group. “The expansion shows that we are committed to a steady growth in this region. The well-trained and highly-skilled workforce in South Carolina will help us to design and manufacture high-quality products for the international automotive industry.”

    A Tier I supplier to the international automotive industry, Dräxlmaier manufactures premium interiors and plastic com-ponents at its Duncan site, which is also home to the company’s U.S. headquarters. Built in 1998, the facility has been expanded twice since then, the last time in 2005 when a new R&D wing was added to the existing building.

    DAA Draexlmaier Automotive of America LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dräxlmaier Group of Germany. The company’s main lines of business include interior components, cockpits, wiring harness and electrical management systems. Customers in North America include BMW, General Motors/Cadillac and Volkswagen.

    General information

    About
    DRÄXLMAIER Group

    The DRÄXLMAIER Group supplies premium automobile manufacturers worldwide with complex wiring harness systems, central electrical and electronic components, exclusive interiors, and battery systems for electromobility. The combination of core competencies in the interior, electrical, electronic and battery systems areas makes DRÄXLMAIER unique in the industry. The company thereby covers the entire process chain, from the initial idea, through the development and production process, and up to precisely in-sequence delivery of the products to the assembly lines of premium automobile manufacturers. The inventor of the customer-specific wiring harness, the DRÄXLMAIER Group develops pioneering wiring harness technology as well as electrical and electronic components, all directly in-house. These include multi-voltage and high-voltage wiring harness systems, battery management systems and intelligent power distributors. DRÄXLMAIER is working on the future of emission-free mobility with its solution for low-voltage and high-voltage battery systems. As a market leader for interior systems in premium automobiles, the DRÄXLMAIER Group also supplies premium automobile manufacturers with ambient lighting, center consoles, door panels and instrument panels, as well as complete door and cockpit modules.  

    The DRÄXLMAIER Group is an international automotive supplier with about 65 sites in over 20 countries. Founded in Germany in 1958, the company employs about 74,000 employees throughout the world. For the DRÄXLMAIER Group as an owner-managed business, responsible and long-range thinking has always been the basis for economic success. It is therefore a core element of its strategy to design its business and production processes, as well as its products, in a more sustainable manner and in that way to increase the competitiveness of the company on a long-term basis.

    In 2022, the DRÄXLMAIER Group generated sales of 5.1 billion euro. Customers of this member of the Top 100 Automotive Suppliers include Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Land Rover, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Porsche and Volkswagen, as well as Californian automotive manufacturers.