Mercedes-Benz US International

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Mercedes-Benz US International (MBUSI) is a subsidiary of Daimler AG based in Vance in Tuscaloosa County , Alabama . It belongs to the Mercedes-Benz Cars division . The Tuscaloosa plant produces the Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV) GLE , GLE Coupé and GLS and, since 2014, the C-Class for the North American market. It is the only Mercedes-Benz plant in the USA.

Access to the factory

history

In April 1993 the parent company, then Daimler-Benz AG, decided to build a plant in the USA in order to better serve the American market and to underline its claim as a global company. The location decision was made in September of that year, after which MBUSI was founded. In July 1996, the plant, in which Daimler had invested 300 million US dollars, was completed. In January / February 1997, production of the first generation of the M-Class could begin, as the first of the ML 320. Initially, the plan was to produce 65,000 units per year. Sales started in the USA in September of that year. Due to its great success, Daimler invested a total of 80 million dollars in 1998 and 1999 in an expansion of the production volume by around 20% to 80,000 units per year. Now, manufactured in two shifts, an average of 350 cars rolled off the assembly line every day. 571,000 units of the first-generation M-Class were produced. In August 2000, Daimler AG announced renewed expansion plans. Another production line was built for 600 million dollars to produce the second generation of the M-Class as well as the R and GL-Class. From 1999 to 2002, in order to be able to meet the demand in Europe, the M-Class also had to be manufactured in the Magna Steyr plant ( Graz / Austria). With the completion of the expansion at the end of 2004 and the start of production in 2005, the production volume and area as well as the number of employees roughly doubled.

The company in numbers

The factory premises cover 3.8 million square meters, with production taking up 300,000 square meters. The plant consists of a body shop, two painting and two assembly lines, all under one roof. Production is based on the just-in-time principle, with interim storage times for the supplied parts of just a few hours. In terms of value, two thirds of the processed parts come from North American suppliers, of which around 30 are located directly in the region. German suppliers also have branches near the plant, for example Eberspächer . Motors and transmissions come from Germany. The GL-Class was built in Plant 1, the M- and R-Class in Plant 2. Around 1300 robots are used, 1150 of them in the body shop. The plant's annual production is over 280,000 vehicles (as of December 31, 2017). The energy consumption at full production is around 50 MW .

The company employs over 3,700 people (as of December 31, 2017). According to the company, a total of over 10,000 (more than 22,000 are mentioned elsewhere) jobs in the region depend directly or indirectly on the plant.

MBUSI produces not only for customers in the USA, but for the entire world market. With an annual export volume of 1 billion US dollars, the company is the largest exporter in Alabama. According to the company, the total added value of the plant amounts to around 1.5 billion dollars.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Product , at www.mbusi.com , accessed on October 10, 2015
  2. ↑ a b Daimler AG: Mercedes-Benz Cars at a Glance - Production Sites. Retrieved July 20, 2018 .

Coordinates: 33 ° 10 '52 "  N , 87 ° 15' 24"  W.