Hyundai Construction Equipment to Invest $170 Million to Expand Production Capacity by 50 Percent
Hyundai Construction Equipment plans to invest U.S. $170 million in its Ulsan, Korea, factory to increase production capacity by 50 percent and simplify its manufacturing processes for increased efficiency, Hyundai announced.
With this investment, the company will increase its capacity at Ulsan, its major production base, to 15,000 units of construction equipment. This investment, to be spread across four years, is the largest since the company’s launch as a newly established corporation in 2017.
“This increase in manufacturing capability means that Hyundai will be able to address global growth in construction activity,” said Stan Park, president, Hyundai Construction Equipment Americas. “For North America, this positions us to better meet demand arising from planned investments in infrastructure expansion.”
Hyundai Construction Equipment’s investment is focused on restructuring production lines to maximize and expand production capacity for excavators, wheel loaders and other types of construction equipment. Specifically, they will merge production and assembly functions from one factory into two, simplifying workflow processes, increasing efficiency and reducing logistics costs.
Choi Cheol-gun, CEO of HCE and a production expert in the area of construction equipment who also heads Hyundai Heavy Industries Group’s Global Production Innovation Center, recently declared the necessity of improving the efficiency of the Ulsan facility and set out to execute a plan to create both synergy and friendly competition with Hyundai Doosan Infracore.
Choi said, “Strengthening the competitiveness of the Ulsan factory is the first challenge that needs to be addressed to reach the global top five,” which Hyundai has set as a goal of the construction equipment division of Hyundai Heavy Industries. “With this investment, we will further raise our brand competitiveness by producing and delivering construction equipment with increased efficiency.”
Also, Hyundai Construction Equipment plans to reflect ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) factors, through measures such as the use of eco-friendly sub-materials in interior and exterior finish work and configuring production lines in a way that further improves worker safety. This is in keeping with completion of construction last November, at a cost of U.S. $65 million, of HCE’s technology innovation center. With 16 laboratories employing 100 researchers, the center will execute research and development projects focused on eco-friendly technologies, energy efficiency and noise reduction.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.