Following General Motors' announcement last month to expand full-size pickup production capacity in Fort Wayne, Ind., the company recently said it will be investing $150 million at the Flint Truck Assembly to increase production of the new Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra heavy-duty pickups. The Flint expansion will go toward updating tools used during production.
“We have tremendous opportunities to grow our heavy-duty pickup business, because we’ve invested in capability, performance, innovation and capacity,” said Mark Reuss, GM president, in a statement. “Our all-new Chevrolet and GMC HD pickups are the toughest, strongest, most capable heavy-duty pickups we’ve ever brought to market, and our Flint team is up to the challenge to build world-class quality products to drive the growth.”
“The new money will go to updating the conveyors and tooling in the assembly,” said Dan Foles, manager of news relations at GM, told Industry Week. “We’re going to be able to build about 40,000 more pickups now, compared to what they used to do with the initial product to what they will do with the new money.”
In addition to the over $1.6 billion GM has invested at Flint since 2013, the company has also added 1,000 new jobs to Flint this year.
GM’s plan to increase production of its full-size pickups began last year when the company launched the all-new Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 1500 light-duty crew cabs assembled at the Fort Wayne plant.