Work on GE’s 132,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing facility are in full swing, with around 125 people working through GE Power & Water’s selected builder, Columbia-based M.B. Kahn.
The GE Power & Water Greenville Advanced Manufacturing Works facility – which is part of a $400 million investment that would create 80 new jobs in Greenville over the next decade – will provide parts and support for all of GE Power & Water’s verticals, including gas, steam and wind turbines, nuclear services and distributed power.
Slated for a fall completion date, the facility was designed with flexibility in mind, which is relatively unique, according to GE Power & Water Advanced Manufacturing Works General Manager Kurt Goodwin.
“We always want to be able to adjust and take advantage of what’s coming out in the marketplace,” said Goodwin, who has been GE for 31 years. “You typically build things up and get things running … the expectation is that you have relatively few changes after that.”
The facility will highlight customer visibility through a series of manufacturing pods visible from the main entrance lobby, and through a two-story customer experience center that includes an observation level that looks over the manufacturing space itself, said M.B. Kahn Executive Vice President and Greenville Division Manager Jim Heard.
High-performance electronic information-sharing systems will include interactive displays with real-time video streaming, as well as kiosks and training centers for engineers and customers, he said.
M.B. Kahn has worked with GE since 2001 with its Gas Turbine Engine Combustor Testing Laboratory. The company recently completed GE’s Test Stand 7 and is working on Test Stand 6, to be finished in spring or early summer, said Heard.
M.B. Kahn is a Columbia-based construction company that operates across seven offices across the Southeast. The company is currently working on a 400,000-square-foot distribution center for Fruit of the Loom in Summerville, S.C., and a 700,000-square-foot plant for Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary Shaw in Adairsville, Ga. The company recently completed construction on the TD Bank regional operation center in Greenville along Interstate 85, said Heard.
GE has been in Greenville for more than 45 years, starting with a 340,000-square-foot facility in 1968, according to GE Power & Water President and CEO Steve Bolze during the Advanced Manufacturing Works groundbreaking in June. The company currently employs 3,000 people in Greenville and has invested more than $500 million in its Power & Water Greenville campus during the last five years.
GE Power & Water is a division of GE that focuses on distributed power, nuclear energy, power generation products, power generation services, renewable energy and water and process technologies. Power & Water is headquartered in Schenectady, N.Y., and is GE’s largest industrial business, according to a news release.
