Gen-Y Hitch will break ground in two to three weeks on a new, 72,000-square-foot facility on 10 acres in Nappanee, Indiana. The new facility and land will triple the company’s current production and office space.
The new facility will house next-generation automation equipment, an R&D lab and office space. The new building and equipment will cost over $6 million.
According to Gen-Y Hitch President Dan Miller, customers’ increasing demand for the company’s products is driving the expansion. Gen-Y Hitch has been planning to build and equip the new facility for over a year.
About 60,000 square feet of the new facility will be dedicated to manufacturing and contain equipment to further automate the process. The new equipment will include automated weld lines with robot welding cells, automated computer numerical control (CNC) machining centers and two-dimensional laser cutting systems with automated loading and unloading.
“The new facility and new equipment will allow us to produce quite a bit more product and it will make us a lot more efficient,” Miller said. “It will allow us to expand and produce new, innovative products that we do not currently have the capacity to build. Our founder, Carl (Borkholder), is a genius at coming up with new and innovative products and leading our team to build those products which are the foundation of our company. That is what keeps us growing.”
The facility will include a research and development lab, or technology center, to drive new product development and improve current products, Miller said.
Gen-Y Hitch currently has two facilities. The company will eliminate its existing facility in Nappanee and keep the company’s 20,000-square-foot space in Bremen. The Bremen facility will be dedicated to aluminum manufacturing.
The new facility will be located at 3400 West Market Street in Nappanee and is expected to be operational in the fourth quarter. The facility will employ 60. The number of employees will grow in time, Miller said.
“The typical team members we will be looking for will be highly skilled operators of automated machinery,” Miller said. “This facility will provide a much better work environment for our manufacturing team members. Our goal is to have the cleanest most advanced metal fabrication facility in the area.”
Gen-Y Hitch was founded in 2011. The company’s branded products are manufactured in the U.S. in Indiana.
