FCA US LLC confirmed it is investing more than $166 million in three new press lines at its Sterling Stamping Plant, located in Sterling Heights, Michigan, to support increased product demand. The new press lines, already under construction, are expected to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2015 and will reach full volume in the first half of 2016.
The investment comes as the facility celebrates 50 years of producing body panels and assemblies for some of the company’s most popular vehicles like the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram Truck.
The investment includes the purchase and installation of two extra-large High Speed Servo Tandem press lines and one large Servo Progressive press line. In total, the three presses will increase the number of stampings produced each day by nearly 75,000 or 20 million a year. Currently, Sterling Stamping produces 62 million stampings annually.
Recognized as the largest stamping plant in the world, Sterling Stamping is one of six facilities in the FCA North American family that stamps and sub-assembles parts from sheet metal, including hoods, roofs, lift gates, side apertures, fenders and floor pans. Those parts are then shipped to several of the company’s U.S., Mexican and Canadian facilities to be welded and assembled together to form the bodies of such vehicles as:
- Dodge Grand Caravan; Chrysler Town & Country – Windsor (Ontario) Assembly Plant
- Dodge Dart; Jeep Compass; Jeep Patriot – Belvidere (Illinois) Assembly Plant
- Dodge Durango; Jeep Grand Cherokee – Jefferson North (Detroit) Assembly Plant
- Chrysler 200 – Sterling Heights (Michigan) Assembly Plant
- Jeep Cherokee – Toledo (Ohio) Assembly ComplexRam Trucks – Warren (Michigan) and Saltillo (Mexico) Truck Assembly Plants
Sterling Stamping’s first parts were produced in January 1965. The plant is currently home to nearly 2,300 employees.