Canadian automotive supplier Magna International celebrated the grand opening of its new $37 million, 255,000-square-foot Spartanburg County seating plant on Monday, March 26.
Gov. Henry McMaster joined company and local officials to cut the ribbon for the facility, which sits at 3052 Highway 290 in Moore on more than 20 acres at Greenville-based Pacolet Milliken Enterprises’ Tyger River Industrial Park.
The plant is Magna’s fourth production plant in South Carolina. It could eventually provide jobs for more than 600 people and will produce seat assemblies for Spartanburg-based BMW Manufacturing Co.’s X5, X6, and X7 models.
“This is a transformative event,” McMaster said. “These are not the old-timey jobs, where you wore clothes that got greasy and oily. … You work with computers. You can work in many of these plants going up today wearing a ball gown or a tuxedo. You’re not even getting dirty. The workforce has changed. And we’re changing it in South Carolina. And we’re headed right straight to the top.”
Magna broke ground on the state-of-the-art facility, which was developed by North Carolina-based SunCap Property Group, owned by Oregon-based Ernie’s Pride, in late 2016.
The plant’s construction was completed in about eight months, according to Steve Salvatore, general manager for Magna, who provided the creative vision for the facility.
He said the 220 associates who have been hired for the plant so far are in the process of fine-tuning its operations.
Production will begin ramping up in July for the official start of production that is anticipated for Aug. 1.
Salvatore said the program’s total capacity is 1.5 million units for 7.5 years. At full capacity, the plant will likely run two shifts and produce about 700 seats per day.
Tom Skudutis, chief operating officer for Magna, said the company has evolved into a “mobility solutions provider.”
During the past three decades, he said Magna’s annual sales have increased from about $700 million to more than $40 billion.
Skudutis said the company has 170,000 employees, 335 manufacturing sites, and 100 product and research-and-development facilities in more than 28 countries worldwide.
“This today is only a seed in the ground,” he said. “This is what we are all about. We like to create opportunities for people to do very well for themselves. And, in the meantime, our business is to deliver a great product to our customer on time, all of the time.”
Murat Aksel, senior vice president of purchasing and supplier network Americas for BMW Manufacturing Co., described Magna as a “reliable partner” during his past 20 years with the luxury automaker.
While the two companies have collaborated on the production of various parts, they had never worked together on seats prior to 2014, he said.
Lear Corp. has supplied the bulk of that business throughout the years.
“I thought, you know, [Magna doesn’t] have the experience to ship and deliver the needs which we have — we have big complexity in our seats,” Aksel said. “In 2014, I was in the capacity of being responsible for the global seating business. And we decided to increase our capacity here in Spartanburg from 300,000 cars per year to 450,000. It was clear that we definitely needed a second reliable seat partner.”
In February 2015, Magna was selected as BMW’s new seating partner after a lengthy process, Aksel said.
“Seats are very important to our cars,” Aksel said. “They actually connect the human being with our car. … Quality is always first. And we need the seats on time, in the right quantity, at the right place, and the right variation. I am very confident … that we will be successful together.”
Hiring for the facility is ongoing. Job seekers can visit Magna’s recruiting center near the southern entrance to the plant, the company’s careers page online, or readySC’s website.
