|
Volkswagen Westmoreland Assembly was a manufacturing complex located south of Pittsburgh in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania near New Stanton. The complex manufactured 1.15 million Volkswagens from 1978 until 1987.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = Automotive News, Tim Moran, October 17, 2005 )〕 When VWoA began manufacturing at what had been an unfinished Chrysler plant, it became the first foreign automobile company to build cars in the United States since Rolls-Royce manufactured cars in Springfield, Massachusetts from 1921 to 1931.〔〔 Chrysler had called the facility the ''New Stanton plant''; Volkswagen changed the name to simply ''Westmoreland''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = Ward's Automotive, Ward's AutoWorld, Apr 1, 2000 )〕 The factory manufactured a range of fuel-efficient small cars with gasoline or diesel engines, all variants (or rebadged models) of Volkswagen's Golf: the Rabbit (79–84); Rabbit GTI (83–84); Rabbit Pickup (1979–1982); the Golf Mk2 and GTI (85–89) and the Jetta (87–89). Built with the largest incentive package the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had ever offered, the factory had an estimated annual capacity of 240,000 cars and reached production of 200,000 in 1980.〔 Engines and drivetrains for Westmoreland production were sourced from Germany.〔 Employment, projected at 20,000, reached its highest level in mid-1981 at 6,000 〔http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=H2QuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CtoFAAAAIBAJ&dq=national%20debate%20pittsburgh&pg=1627%2C2728228〕 and by 1984 had dropped to 1,500.〔 Initially, the plant was highly successful, but numerous factors contributed to a sharp decline in sales of the cars manufactured at Westmoreland and the factory's ultimate demise: increased competition in the North American small car market, easing of the period's fuel crisis, poorly received changes to the character of the cars, VWoA's long product life-cycle, the internal economics of the plant itself, persistent labor unrest at the plant and poor networking between Westmoreland and Volkswagen headquarters in Germany.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = Edmunds, Bill Visnic, December 6, 2010 )〕 The factory operated at less than half its design capacity and VWoA suffered operating losses during the last five years of its operation.〔 Sales of Volkswagen's U.S.-built cars plummeted by nearly 60 percent between 1980 and 1985.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = LA Times, September 27, 1985 )〕 Japanese manufacturers soon followed VWoA's unionized plant into production in the U.S. – achieving success at non-unionized plants including Honda at their Marysville, Ohio, plant and Toyota at their Georgetown, Kentucky, plant. By the early 1980s, Volkswagen began retreating from manufacture in North America, selling another assembly plant it had begun developing〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = Business Week, David Kiley, August 31, 2007 )〕 and two ancillary plants to Westmoreland in West Virginia and Texas.〔 With the plant operating at 40 percent capacity and annual losses of $120 million,〔 Volkswagen officially closed Westmoreland Assembly on July 14, 1988. Volkswagen later expanded production of cars in Puebla, Mexico and in 2011 inaugurated its Chattanooga Assembly Plant. The Westmoreland plant was subsequently used by Sony in the production of televisions from 1990–2008. As of 2014, the site is marketed as RIDC Westmoreland and is owned by RIDC, the Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania. ==Beginnings== Prior to development of Westmoreland Assembly, Volkswagen of America was headed by James W. (Jim) McLernon, a former Chevrolet manufacturing chief. Toni Schmücker, VW management board Chairman, selected McLernon to investigate feasibility of U.S. production,〔 in part to help the company avoid international currency fluctuations and high German wages.〔 After investigating five sites and narrowing the field to two alternate sites, a former Westinghouse appliance factory in Columbus, Ohio, and a federal tank plant in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park,〔 VWoA signed a thirty-year lease on Chrysler's unfinished ''New Stanton plant'' originally constructed in 1969 on 〔 at Route 119 in East Huntingdon Township – just outside New Stanton, Pennsylvania. At Westmoreland, Volkswagen developed three major buildings, two minor buildings, and a waste water treatment system. Richard S. Cummins, the plant manager, described the inside of the largest unfinished building with 2.1 million sf, as a "three-dimensional chess-board covering an area of over 37 football fields."〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = The News Dispatch, Mary Lou Bauman )〕 Land had to be re-shaped for a new railway spur, and underground holding tanks constructed for the various fluids to be pumped into the building.〔 The complex included several two-story buildings: an administration building, a building with worker facilities and a metallurgy, plastic, rubber, and electrical testing lab, a building with a paint lab as well as durability and emissions testing as well as a railway yard.〔 VWoA purchased the site with a $40 million loan from the state of Pennsylvania and then invested about $250 million to ready the factory for assembly.〔 In the richest corporate deal to date in Pennsylvania history, state and local officials offered VWoA an incentive package worth nearly $100 million in government assistance, highway and rail improvements and a property-tax exemption.〔 VW subsequently purchased an American Motors stamping plant in South Charleston, West Virginia, investing further to make the factory capable of producing exterior sheet metal stampings for Westmoreland〔 and then purchased a small plant in Fort Worth, Texas for manufacture of the air-conditioning and heating systems and plastic-trim to facilitate integration of factory installed air-conditioning in the Westmoreland-manufactured cars. VWoA would later purchase a former Chrysler missile plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan to begin developing its second North American assembly plant.〔 On April 10, 1978, VWoA dedicated Westmoreland Assembly〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = The Pittsburgh Press, April 10, 1978, William H. Wylie, p. 1 )〕 by driving its first car off the line, a two-door white Rabbit (in ''Rabbit C'' or mid trim level, as with all the initial production)〔 — which had actually been assembled the week before〔 and was shipped after the plant dedication to Volkswagen's Wolfsburg headquarters for its museum.〔 Toni Schmücker, Richard E Dauch, James McLernon, U.S. Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal, Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp and 1,200 employees were on hand the day the first car came off of the line. In his remarks, Schmücker, CEO of Volkswagen AG, paraphrased Neil Armstrong remarks when stepping onto the moon, saying "this may be one small step for America, but it is a giant step for Volkswagen."〔 According to Richard Dauch, who was general manufacturing manager for Volkswagen Manufacturing of America from 1976 to 1978, "within 18 months, from 1976 until April 10, 1978, we had production, excellent quality with no product recalls, over 1,000 (completed cars) a day within two months of launch, two-door, four-door, diesel, K-Jetronic (fuel injection), 10 different body colors, four different interiors. And in that period, every single goal set by the board of directors was met or exceeded, we launched on time and early. We were staying within budgets. We were actually making profits."〔 As of 1979, Volkswagen was "extremely pleased with the quality and productivity" of Westmoreland Assembly. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Volkswagen Westmoreland Assembly」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|