JTEKT Establish New U.S. Bearing Plant in Tennessee


In order to meet the rising demand for bearings in the United States, JTEKT Corporation (headquartered in Osaka, Japan; president Kohshi Yoshida) has decided to establish a third plant under its U.S. subsidiary Koyo Corporation of U.S.A. (KCU) in an industrial park located on the outskirts of Johnson City, Tennessee. Plans are to start construction by the end of this year and begin production at the facility in July 2008.

Establishment of this third plant will enable KCU to raise its monthly production capacity for tapered roller bearings (TRB)-a high-function type of bearing used in automobiles and other applications?from its current level of one million sets to 1.5 million sets. This new plant will require a total investment of approximately $20 million, or around 2.3 billion yen.

Also in relation to this capacity increase, JTEKT and Japanese bearing component manufacturer Nakatetsu Co., Ltd. will form a new joint venture in the same industrial park, and this new company will have the purpose of supplying early-process (lathed) TRB components to the new KCU plant as well as other customers. Plans are to begin production at this company in April 2008.

The JTEKT Group’s operations in the USA began in 1958 with the establishment of a sales company, which later became KCU. Regarding bearing operations, currently the JTEKT Group has two plants, one forging facility, four sales offices and one technical center in America, and with the establishment of this new plant and new joint venture, the total number of bases will be brought to 10. JTEKT believes this expansion of production capacity will enable the needs of U.S. customers to be met more speedily.



Outline of new KCU plant

1.Location: Outskirts of Johnson City, Tennessee, USA

2.Employees: Approximately 100 (plan in December 2009)

3.Products: Tapered roller bearings

4.Land size: Approximately 121,000m²

5.Floor space: Approximately 7,000m²



Outline of new joint venture

1.Company name: Nakatetsu Machining Technologies, LLC

2.Location: Outskirts of Johnson City, Tennessee, USA

3.President: Katsumi Okita (senior executive director of Nakatetsu Co., Ltd.)

4.Capital: $4 million (approximately 500 million yen)

5.Ownership: Majority ownership by Nakatetsu Co., Ltd. (ratio to be decided separately)

6.Employees: Approximately 60 (plan in December 2009)

7.Land size: Approximately 89,000m²

8.Floor space: Approximately 6,300m²

9. Investment: Approximately $11 million (approximately 1.2 billion yen)



Outline of KCU

1.Company name: Koyo Corporation of U.S.A.

2.Established: October 1958

3.Location: Orangeburg, South Carolina, USA

4.President: Tsutomu Nemoto (executive managing officer of JTEKT Corporation)

5.Capital: $297 million (approximately 32.6 billion yen)

6.Ownership: JTEKT Corporation 100%

7.Employees: Approximately 960

8.Business: Manufacture and sales of all types of bearings



Outline of Nakatetsu

1.Company name: Nakatetsu Co., Ltd.

2.Established: September 1961

3.Head office location: Kawachi-Nagano, Osaka Prefecture, Japan

4.President: Shuji Nakano

5.Capital: 80 million yen

6.Ownership: JTEKT Corporation 20%, 10 others 80%

7.Employees: Approximately 260

8.Business: Forging and lathing of all types of bearing components

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