Guide to Economic Development in the Global Auto Industry - S37

GEORGIA
Workers finalize a window at Fuyao
Glass in Moraine, Ohio, once a General
Motors auto plant.

Georgia lets its
star city attract
automotive

its central location between the supplier's
customers to the north and south. Investing
in the GM site offered a less-expensive startup than building a new glass plant, said Tanner, who assisted the project. And Moraine
offered ready access to GM's trained workforce - a factor that would minimize getting
up and running.
But there were still complications.
Refitting a vehicle assembly plant to produce
glass products required considerable construction work, Tanner said. Fuyao wanted its own
self-standing building, so a portion of the GM
plant had to be demolished and another onsite
tenant relocated.
The project required contractors to fill in the
production line trenches that GM had used for
vehicle assembly. But Fuyao's processes needed to have different trenches dug running in
the opposite direction to accommodate its
glass-making line.
"We've remained involved, despite the size
and complexity of the project," Tanner said.
"We want to be a long-term partner of a Chinese company this size that wants to grow."

ike other Southern states, Georgia is out
to attract auto manufacturing investments. But it also has its eye on a bigger
prize: people.
Georgia's largest city, Atlanta, has been cultivating a young workforce of technology talent
that automotive companies are looking for,
and state officials are working with companies
to tap into that pool.
Universities within a four-hour radius of
Atlanta are turning out more than 10,000
new engineering graduates a year - a third of
them from Atlanta's own Georgia Institute of
Technology, says Mike Grundmann, director
of automotive and advanced manufacturing at the Georgia Department of Economic
Development. To encourage many of them
to live in Atlanta, the state, Georgia Tech and
private-sector interests have been developing
"live-work-play" communities around downtown. Over the past 10 years, Georgia Tech's
"Tech Square" has been expanded beyond the
university limits into the city's Midtown area.
Today, the effort consists of a collection of incubators and innovation centers, with automotive playing a key role.
"The idea is to be close to the students
and create a collaboration area where companies and young people can interact,"
Grundmann said.
Among the companies that have opened an
innovation center in Tech Square is Panasonic
Automotive Systems. General Motors added
its own innovation center in suburban Atlanta
about five years ago.
Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and, most recently,
PSA Group, now claim Atlanta for their North
American headquarters.
"Technology plays a key role in what we're going to do," PSA Group North America CEO Larry
Dominique said about why PSA chose Atlanta.
PSA also was attracted by Atlanta itself.
"What is the culture of the city we're going
to?" Dominique asked. "How balanced, from a
technology mindset, is the university system,
the car system, in addition to the quality of life?
"When you roll it all together, it works in
Atlanta."

- stephanie hernandez mcgavin

OHIO

New life for Ohio's old GM plant

hen Fuyao Glass Industry Group considered building its first U.S. manufacturing site in 2013, the Chinese auto supplier concluded it would not be able to build a greenfield
site and scale up as quickly as it had done in
Russia and China. Instead, the company opted
to tailor its manufacturing
operations into an existing
site, something it had never attempted before, says
Kristi Tanner, senior managing director for automotive at Jobs Ohio, a private
non-profit company that
Kristi Tanner
drives investment in Ohio.
Its choice? Using General Motors' former
assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, near Dayton.
The supplier already is growing in the new
space. Fuyao used only part of the massive GM
factory at first, about 1.4 million square feet. It
has since expanded to nearly 2.1 million square
feet. Tanner added that Fuyao employs more
than 2,000 people in Moraine and has invested
$700 million in the site to date.
Fuyao initially was drawn to Moraine for

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