Honeywell adds 80 jobs at Clover plant

Honeywell International Inc. will spend $10.5 million to expand a safety-glove plant in Clover and add 80 jobs at the facility.

The North Safety plant now employs 110. As an incentive to promote the expansion, York County has agreed to let the plant owners pay a fee in lieu of the normal, higher property taxes. The value of that inducement wasn’t immediately disclosed.

North Safety Products previously owned the plant. News that Honeywell will expand the operation is “music to our ears in Clover,” says Mayor Donnie Grice.

The expansion will come in stages. The first phase, to occur through next year, will add 30 jobs, with the company investing $4.5 million. The rest of the job growth and investment are to be completed by 2013.

As a part of the process, an additional product line will be added and 17,500 square feet will be added to the 61,000-square-foot structure.

The plant makes protective and safety gloves for firefighters, utility workers and the nuclear power industry.

Honeywell gained ownership of the plant in May 2008 when it bought Norcross Safety Products of Oak Brook, Ill., corporate parent of North Safety.

Source: Biz Journals

Nissan to create 350 jobs at Wearside factory in UK

Nissan has announced that its Wearside factory will start producing batteries for electric cars, which is expected to create 350 new jobs.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that Nissan's £200m investment "was great news for the local economy".

The plant, near Sunderland, has beaten off competition from other Nissan factories in Europe for the investment.

The move could pave the way for the production of electric vehicles at the North East plant in the near future.

"Sunderland could now be a strong contender to produce electric vehicles for Nissan in Europe, and we will continue to work with Nissan to ensure this happens," the prime minister said.

Mr Brown visited the Sunderland factory along with Business Secretary Lord Mandelson.

The BBC's Fiona Trott said that it was not clear whether the deal secured the jobs of the 4,000 people employed at the existing Nissan plant. She said 1,200 jobs had been cut earlier this year.

'Low carbon area'

Mr Mandelson said a "low-carbon economic area" would be established in the North East.

As part of the project, 750 charging points would be installed across the region and a training centre specialising in the manufacture and maintenance of low-carbon vehicles would be set up.

Nissan's £200m investment will be spread over five years and the new plant, which will make lithium-ion batteries, will also create and secure additional jobs in the related supply chain.

Nissan also announced it was setting up another battery manufacturing plant in Portugal.

Michael Steventon, head of automotive research at consultants KPMG, said that the announcement was a vote of confidence in the Nissan workforce in Sunderland.

"Batteries are only part of a vehicle but they are an expensive, logistically significant part," he said.

"It does mean that Nissan is more likely to manufacture electric vehicles in the UK than elsewhere in Europe," he added.

However, he said that if the UK wanted to really capitalise on the move toward hybrid vehicles, more investment in research and development was needed.

Assistance

The government said it was working with Nissan on supporting the investment by offering grants and loan guarantees, including support through its Automotive Assistance Programme.

Earlier this year, the government set aside £2.3bn to support the UK's ailing car industry - but nothing has yet been paid out.

"The North East has distinguished itself as the first specialised region for ultra-low-carbon vehicles," Lord Mandelson said.

"This is good news not just for the North East, but for the whole of the UK, helping to attract foreign investment and securing UK's place as a global leader in hi-tech manufacturing and automotive industries," he added.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "This is an excellent initiative. It combines active industrial policy and environmental transformation, pointing the way to the kind of economy we will need to build after the recession."

The announcement from Nissan comes only days after its Japanese rival Toyota said it would start manufacturing the new Auris hybrid petrol-electric vehicle at its plant in Burnaston, Derbyshire from mid-2010.

Source: BBC

STMicroelectronics to create 650 jobs by 2012 at Crolles R&D facility

STMicroelectronics will create 650 jobs and invest $1.25bn in the Crolles R&D and wafer fab facility by 2012, according to ST's CEO, Carlo Bozotti, who added that the investment would give ST 'strategic independence'.

Bozotti was speaking at a ceremony to mark the formal launch of Nano2012 a joint R&D programme with CEA-LETI, the French Laboratory for Electronics & Information The French Minister of Economy, Industry and Employment, Christine Lagarde, said the investment was: "Strategically important since we will be keep a French production site in a sector which is absolutely crucial for us."

Nano2012 is a public/private strategic R&D program, led by ST, which gathers research institutes and industrial partners and is supported by French national, regional and local authorities.

The Nano2012 cooperation programme, with other programmes such as CATRENE, aims to provide will Europe's electronics industry with competitive access to the most advanced CMOS technologies from 32nm down to 22nm.

Work on the Nano2012 programme started on January 1, 2008. The five-year program, which will run until December 31, 2012, is partly funded to the extent of Euros 457m by the

Other partners are INRIA (the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control), CNRS (National centre for Scientific Research), universities, and many small- and medium-sized enterprise partners.

ST and CEA-LETI initially set up of the Crolles R&D centre in 1992, with CEA-LETI providing the interface between long-term academic research and ST's market-driven industrial R&D.

In July 2007, ST joined the semiconductor Joint Development Alliance centred at IBM's Semiconductor Research and Development centre in East Fishkill and Albany, New York, which develops core and low-power CMOS processes from 32 to 22nm, and IBM joined ST in Crolles to develop value-added application-specific derivative CMOS technologies.

CEA-LETI and IBM, which have complementary expertise in the development of materials and processes required for CMOS technology, are collaborating on advanced process R&D down to 22nm and beyond, at CEA-LETI's Grenoble site (France), IBM's East Fishkill facility (NY), ST's Crolles site (France), and at the Albany NanoTech research centre (NY).

Since the start of the Nano2012 program in January 2008, ST and IBM have exchanged researchers between their sites at Crolles and East Fishkill and have begun working along with researchers from CEA-LETI on a variety of key programs, including 32nm and 28nm core CMOS processes, 45nm RF (Radio Frequency) derivative technology for wireless applications and 65nm non-volatile-memory derivative technology for use in automotive and smart-card applications.

Nano2012 focuses on technology platform development for low-power and application-specific derivative CMOS technologies. A technology platform encompasses the manufacturing process by which billions of transistors are integrated onto a single silicon chip as well as the components libraries and the design methodology to efficiently design leading-edge circuits in this process.

Source: Electronics Weekly

Energy firm Bord na Mona to create 300 jobs

Semi-state energy firm Bord na Mona has vowed to create 300 green jobs.

Announcing profits of more than 23 million euro, the company said it was aiming to halve the amount of CO2 it pumps out and turn its attention to the renewable market. Bord na Mona said 300 staff will be taken on as the company pushes ahead with new business ideas over the next five years.

Energy Minister Eamon Ryan welcomed the initiative and said it was a sign of the green economy in action. "This direction shows us that by going green, we not only benefit the environment but we reap considerable economic benefits as well," the minister said.

Source: UK Press

New Three Bridges train depot could create up to 300 jobs

Around 300 new jobs will be coming to the town as part of a £5.5 billion project.

A new train depot will soon be built in Three Bridges in time for the 2012 London Olympics.

Improved transport is being introduced by Network Rail, which will include more trains, more seats and better journeys for passengers.

The national train operator has had to choose two sites to hold its trains, one south and one north of Central London.

And the company has decided to build its south depot in Three Bridges.

Source: This is Sussex

338 new jobs at Continental Teves

Gov. Bev Perdue today announced the creation of up to 338 new jobs at Continental Teves, which makes brakes and brake parts for the automotive industry.

Henderson County earlier this month agreed to offer an incentive package to an unnamed company that planned to invest $30 million for machines and equipment, creating 338 new jobs by 2014. The company's name was not revealed until today.

"North Carolina ranks 10th nationally in automotive-related jobs thanks to the commitment of such international leaders as Continental and its subsidiary in our state,” Perdue said in a released statement. “Established companies continue to grow here because they know the value of our top business climate and skilled workforce.”

Henderson County was one of three locations that competed for the brake-maker's expansion, Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development President and CEO Andrew Tate told commissioners.

"This project is significant, because it is the largest manufacturing job creation project in Western North Carolina in over a decade, and one of the largest in Henderson County ever,” Henderson County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bill Moyer said.

The company plans to begin the work this year, commissioners were told, and would hire new employees in 2011. The average wage for the new positions would be $36,179.

The Fletcher Town Council approved an economic incentive package for the company Friday. Tate said the value was about half of what the board of commissioners approved.

The exact value of the incentives are hard to calculate, because they are based on a depreciating asset. The value of the incentives will decrease over time as the value of the equipment declines, but the overall value will be tens of thousands of dollars.

“Since it is equipment, it would be reassessed each year,” Tate explained.

Source: Blue Ridge Now

Yale Industrial Products creates 65 jobs in Wadesboro

Yale Industrial Products Inc., a designer and manufacturer of material-handling products, will expand its operations in Wadesboro.

The company plans to invest $3 million and add 65 jobs over the next three years.

The Wadesboro plant has 136 workers.

The new jobs will pay an average $37,031 per year, excluding benefits. That exceeds the Anson County average of $28,288.

Yale Industrial Products is owned by Columbus McKinnon Corp. of New York, which makes hoists, trolleys, cranes and other material-handling equipment.

Columbus McKinnon also has hoist-manufacturing facilities in Michigan, Ohio and Virginia.

The company plans to consolidate its Michigan operation into the other plants, including the Wadesboro facility, which will add a line of wire rope hoists.

Columbus McKinnon also owns Duff-Norton, a manufacturing facility in Charlotte.

The proposed expansion was made possible, in part, by a $116,300 grant from the One North Carolina Fund, according to the office of Gov. Bev Perdue. The state uses the fund to attract business projects that create jobs.

New employment positions will be posted at the N.C. Employment Security Commission/JobLink Center at 116 W. Wade St. in Wadesboro. Applicants must apply at the center.

Source: Biz Journals