Takeuchi recently rolled its first U.S.-built compact track loader off the assembly line at its new manufacturing facility in Moore, South Carolina.
The facility, which was purchased from Kobelco in April of this year, is Takeuchi’s first production facility in North America. The 156,000-square-foot facility will eventually produce nearly all of the company's CTLs. Takeuchi says this will reduce lead time for North American customers and better meet market needs worldwide.
“The North American market has demonstrated the greatest demand for Takeuchi compact track loaders over time, and that demand continues to grow,” said Jeff Stewart, president of Takeuchi-US. “Manufacturing these popular machines here is a sound business decision because it eliminates the need to ship them from an overseas facility to supply our North American dealers and customers. However, Takeuchi’s global markets are also expanding, and we expect to export more compact track loaders from our new facility as production levels increase.”
Historically, Takeuchi has manufactured CTLs at one of its factories in the Nagano province of Japan. Once production ramps up in the U.S., Takeuchi says, it will retool the Japanese facility to produce compact excavators.
“All in all, our new production facility will help us continue growing our compact track loader business by reducing lead times and helping us get the right units to market faster,” Stewart added. “It will also allow us to increase our compact excavator business by allowing our facility in Japan to focus on producing these very popular machines.”
Forty people currently work at the Moore facility. The company has plans to add 110 additional staff over the next few months.
