USA: JCI battery plant expected to bring 550 jobs to Holland by 2014

HOLLAND — Resumes are pouring into Johnson Controls Inc. for what will be the site of its largest plant to produce lithium-ion batteries for electric cars.

Along with applications, the small staff at the Holland plant has been deluged with e-mails and calls from those trying to help cousins, friends and neighbors get a foot in the door.

“Everywhere I go, somebody says, ’I need to talk to you,’” plant manager Elizabeth Rolinski said last week in her first Press interview on the project.

TIMELINE
Powering up at Johnson Controls Inc.
Spring: first equipment for battery-pack production to be installed

November: first equipment for cell production to arrive

By the end of 2010: the first skeleton team of production workers to be on board

June 2011: production begins for battery packs, which each house about 100 battery cells

By 2014: JCI’s Meadowbrook plant to have at least 300 workers with 250 positions housed at other facilities where electronics and other battery components.

A joint venture of Johnson Controls and French manufacturer Saft, the project is expected to generate 550 well-paying jobs by 2014.

That means a lot in a region where manufacturing has been hit hard by layoffs in both the automotive and office furniture industries. Ottawa County’s most recent jobless rate was 12.8 percent.

The state is pinning a lot of hope on the batteries expected to power a new generation of electric cars. In her radio address last week, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said tax credit legislation and Department of Energy grants laid the foundation for the new industry.

“Battery plants will begin sprouting up across the state, from Holland on the west side to Brownstown Township on the east,” she said. “A Michigan State University economist projects that up to 40,000 jobs will be created in this industry by 2020.”

The battery operation will start small. By the end of the year, the five-member staff at the Meadowbrook plant at 36 W. 48th St. will grow to 25.

But eventually, it will have 300 workers, with another 250 at other local JCI facilities producing parts for the operation.

“We are hiring right now for our engineering team,” Rolinski said. “We will just continue to ramp up.”
The JCI project appears to be the most sure-footed among the three electric-car battery plants being discussed for the Lakeshore from Holland to Muskegon.

It’s backed by a $299.2 million Department of Energy stimulus fund grant announced in August by Vice President Joe Biden.

“We have a facility, and we are the only ones with a lithium ion plant already in production, so that gives us an advantage in that we’ve done it before,” said Rebecca Fitzgerald, spokeswoman for battery operations at JCI’s Milwaukee headquarters.

If the other two plants materialize, this region could become a battery-producing hub.

German-based Fortu PowerCell GmbH plans a $664 manufacturing plant in Muskegon Township if it gets enough state support. First-phase production could begin as early as 2012 for the operation that could eventually employ 750. The project hinges on a state tax break that is expected to be approved this month.

In the fall, news leaked that South Korean-based LG Chem Ltd. has told shareholders it wants to locate a $303 million lithium-ion battery plant in Holland. Although the project hasn’t been officially announced in Michigan, plans call for construction to begin in the summer with operations launched in June 2013.

While battery plants offer a struggling state some optimism, the newness of green technologies also makes them a risky venture, said George Erickcek, an analyst with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo.

“These technologies are very hard to predict,” he said. “Two to three years ago, people talked a lot about ethanol plants. Now that industry is underwater.”

The JCI plant — which will produce both battery cells and battery packs — already has several contracts, including with Ford Motor Co.

This year, the company plans to begin shipping out battery packs — using cells made at JCI-Saft’s battery plant in Nersac, France — to Azure Dynamics for commercial hybrid cars.

Next year, the plant will ship battery cells for Ford’s first plug-in hybrid vehicle, to be introduced in 2012.
Production work will be more high-tech than some of JCI’s other manufacturing operations. There will be more than a dozen “clean rooms,” mixing of chemicals, and employees in lab coats, hair nets and booties to eliminate contamination.

“It will be a little less of the repetitive assembly work,” Rolinski said. “Instead, they’ll be learning how to monitor computers on how processes are going.

“Not everybody will be an engineer, but there will be a lot techs, who may have two-year or four-year degrees. There will be significant production jobs as well.”

Neither Rolinski nor Fitzgerald was willing to give wage rates but said they would be competitive.
“Johnson Controls is one of our top employers, from a pay and benefit standpoint,” said Randy Thelen, president of Lakeshore Advantage, who worked to bring the project to Holland.

The draw to West Michigan is an employee pool with a reputation for working hard and a willingness to learn new technologies.

Still, some of the plant’s hires will come from outside of the area.

“For some of it, you have to look outside of West Michigan just because some of it is very high-tech and very specific,” Rolinksi said

Source: mlive.com