When Chrysler’s Belvidere Assembly Plant (the home of the new Dodge Dart) opened in the middle of a northern Illinois cornfield in 1965, the automaker was in the midst of a decade of growth.
Several Fiat factories in Europe, including Pomigliano, Italy, and Tychy, Poland, were benchmarked by engineers from Chrysler’s Belvidere Assembly Plant before producing the new Dodge Dart.
DETROIT—Chrysler workers are using tools normally found at film animation studios—such as 3D videos and computerized motion sensors—to reshape the way they assemble a car or build an engine.
FAIRFAX, KS—A UAW local at GM’s assembly plant here will hold a strike authorization vote Thursday after workers rejected a local labor contract last Friday. About 66 percent of production workers and 58 percent of skilled-trades workers voted against the proposed contract.
A plain-looking warehouse near Detroit is being transformed into a state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery assembly plant. General Motors Co. (GM) is investing $43 million in the facility to mass-produce battery packs for the Chevrolet Volt and other extended-range electric vehicles. When the 160,000-square-foot facility opens next year, it will be the first lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant in the U.S. operated by a major automaker.
Lithium-ion batteries are today's hot technology in the auto industry. However, the devices have traditionally been expensive to produce. To capture a piece of the lithium-ion battery business, American manufacturers need to invest heavily in automated assembly lines.
