American LaFrance to consolidate its operations in South Carolina
May 1, 2009 12:00 PM
American LaFrance officials announced that the company will consolidate all corporate manufacturing into the Summerville SC headquarters and manufacturing facility.
“We have a state-of-the-art facility,” says Bill Hinz, president and chief executive officer of American LaFrance. “Consolidating all manufacturing operations to Summerville will allow us to work off the same systems, eliminate redundancy, reduce costs in having to manage multiple facilities, and allow us to share services across all business units of American LaFrance, including our military assembly projects with PVIA, a military-armored, protected-vehicles company recently purchased by our parent Patriarch Partners.”
American LaFrance is moving equipment from the other facilities into the Summerville plant.
“We have a phenomenal facility in Summerville with 435,000 square feet of manufacturing space,” says Brady Crandall, director of manufacturing engineering. “We can accommodate all tooling and equipment from the other facilities into our main plant and continue to build our product line. The consolidation into Summerville will allow us set up the fire body manufacturing to fit more in line with an automotive assembly process. This will allow us to reduce seldom-used option content, but still offer customization both on and off the assembly line.”
American LaFrance will continue to build its current line of fire and vocational trucks in Summerville.
To entice the world's oldest manufacturer of fire apparatus to remain in the state, the South Carolina Department of Commerce along with the Charleston Regional Development Alliance approved an incentive package based on the future growth of the company.
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