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The
region offered the Japanese auto parts maker a high
quality of life, business-friendly climate and a quality
workforce with training resources customized to meet
its needs
Japanese automotive
transmission manufacturer AISIN AW Co. originally considered
276 sites around the world for a new manufacturing plant.
It quickly narrowed that to eight sites in five U.S.
states - and in the end, the Research Triangle Region
won the project.
The region
offered the company key advantages that clinched the
decision: a high quality of life, business-friendly
state and local officials, and a quality workforce with
training resources that could be customized to AW North
Carolina's needs.
"The people
in this region are the team members our company needs,"
says AW North Carolina President Tsutomu Ishikawa.
The region
enjoys a reputation in Japan as a great place to open
a factory, company officials say, and it offers the
lifestyle amenities that Aisin AW needed to persuade
dozens of its executives and technicians to relocate
from Japan. Local, regional and state officials also
offered strategic help to support the company in its
move. Durham County invested $2 million over five years
to reimburse certain infrastructure costs. Durham Technical
Community College mobilized to develop a customized
worker training program for the highly skilled jobs
the new subsidiary would offer.
AW North Carolina
completed its $100 million plant in northern Durham
County in 2000 and quickly employed more than 350 people
to produce automatic transmission components for a Toyota
plant in West Virginia. The project worked so well that
AW North Carolina won the opportunity to supply components
for another Toyota project.
It decided
to add that capacity at its Research Triangle Region
site. After an additional $160 million investment, the
plant now employs about 100 Japanese coordinators, engineers
and technicians, 850 full-time local team members and
about 50 temporaries. Durham County reimbursed an additional
$2 million over five years for the expansion.
"We have been
fortunate to build strong relationships with Durham
County and the surrounding region," says Ishikawa. "Our
success in the first project gave our parent company
and our customer the confidence to allow our expansion.
We could not have done this without these strong relationships."
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