Eaton recently announced plans to invest more than $100 million to expand North American electrical manufacturing for its residential and commercial electrical solutions. The company is expanding manufacturing capacity, modernizing production and adding a new plant and distribution center. Other facility expansions and modernizations are taking place through 2022.
“Our customers and teams have experienced significant challenges in the last year, which have given us the opportunity to evaluate our approach and make significant improvements to increase manufacturing flexibility, diversity and redundancy,” said Mike Yelton, president of Eaton’s Commercial and Residential Distribution Solutions Division, in the press release. “These investments focus on our customers and employees while bolstering our regional manufacturing and distribution capabilities for essential infrastructure powering homes and businesses.”
Eaton’s manufacturing and supply chain investments specifically target what it says is “surging demand” for intelligent solutions including circuit breakers, load centers, switchboards, residential solutions and more. The company has rapidly scaled up production capacity in its newest facility in El Paso, TX, and will soon do the same in Greenwood, SC, while investing in its existing manufacturing plants in Sumter, SC; Lincoln, IL; Cleveland, TN; and four major facilities in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Eaton also opened a new distribution center in Dallas earlier this year to optimize service levels for customers across the country.
An additional manufacturing plant is planned that will provide incremental and geographically diverse manufacturing capacity for Eaton’s high-volume miniature circuit breakers. The new facility will include on-site molding and stamping to provide vertically integrated production.
“Our distributors and customers have needed even more of our technologies during this difficult time. These investments will diversify our production and supply chain, enabling us to provide industry-leading lead times and deliver the solutions our customers need to build the infrastructure of tomorrow – even in extraordinary times,” said Yelton in the release.