SEYMOUR, Ind. (AP) — Engine maker Cummins Inc. announced Tuesday it would spend nearly $220 million to expand a southern Indiana facility and potentially add 290 jobs in the next few years.
Cummins officials said the company plans to build a new assembly line, warehouse, office building and engineering and testing facilities at its Seymour plant because it expects exports of the high-horsepower engines built there to rise.
The company, which is based in nearby Columbus, unveiled a new 4,000-horsepower high-speed diesel engine last year. It is 8 feet high and 14 feet long, and is designed to power locomotives, boats, mining trucks and offshore oil and gas platforms.
Cummins expects 70 percent of its sales of that engine and other new engines from the Seymour factory will be exports.
"The high-horsepower business is a growing part of Cummins and because of the demand for these products throughout the world we are able to add new high-skilled engineering and manufacturing jobs here in our home region," Cummins Chairman and CEO Tom Linebarger said in a statement.
Gov. Mitch Daniels joined company executives in the expansion announcement at the factory, which employs 525 workers and is about midway between Indianapolis and Louisville, Ky. Cummins employs about 7,800 employees, total, at its Indiana facilities.
Cummins said it expects to start hiring new engineering and support workers at the Seymour plant this year and to fill the additional jobs by 2015.
Cummins makes diesel and other types of engines for trucks, heavy equipment and other uses.
Daniels said he was encouraged that Cummins was keeping high-tech manufacturing in the state and producing engines it can sell throughout the world.
"This is exactly how America has to come back," Daniels told reporters after the announcement. "I told the group here, and I've been saying for years, do not give up on American manufacturing. Today is a perfect example of why not."
