Navistar Opens First US Truck Assembly Plant in Decades

For 29 years, the Kenworth Renton Assembly Plant in Washington state, owned by Paccar, was the newest truck plant in the United States. That changed on March 25, 2022, when truckmaker Navistar held a ribbon cutting for its San Antonio Manufacturing Plant on the city’s South Side, according to a report by Industry Week.

The 1-million-square-foot Navistar plant, designed to manufacture both conventional and electric medium-duty trucks on the same line, sits on 460 acres—enough land to build a second, duplicate plant if it’s needed someday. For now, cattle graze behind fencing on an unbuilt portion of the site.

“I believe this plant is going to lay the foundation for Navistar for many years to come,” Mark Hernandez, Navistar executive vice president of manufacturing, told assembled local dignitaries and media at the day’s grand opening event. On a planned break to celebrate, a lively mass of plant workers in red, white and blue T-shirts designed especially for the occasion took selfies. A photographer shooting from a ladder had them all squish together so they could fit in a class picture backgrounded by white truck cabs.

Hernandez, a veteran manufacturing leader of several truckmakers, first pitched the idea for a super-efficient, cost-saving smart factory to Navistar 3 ½ to 4 years ago. “The technology in this plant reminds of me of the past when we had to build trucks from paper,” he said. “Everything wasn’t automated and all the parts were out on the assembly line. I look at this facility and say ‘Wow, we’ve come a long way.’”

Electronic vision systems throughout the plant—including one in chassis, and one in the body shop—alert operators to problems and will not allow the build to move down the line until the defect is resolved. Multi-use Fanuc robots in the body shop feature multiple weld configurations and robot-learning software. Some 600,000 parts are digitally tracked and routed on AGVs from the on-site material storage and retrieval system to specific stations where they are needed. New forklifts will be hydrogen-powered and the long plan is to generate that power on plant grounds. Overall, Navistar’s goal is to cut energy usage by 20% by 2030; all LED lighting in the plant and translucent wall panels that let in light also help toward sustainability goals.

Read the full report by Industry Week.

Source: https://rvbusiness.com/navistar-opens-first-us-truck-assembly-plant-in-decades/