NGK Expands.

In what we beleieve will be one of the biggest economic stories for West Virginia in 2007.

Details from Joe Morris from the Charleston Gazette news article below:


March 03, 2007

Spark plug plant on way

NGK USA adding to Sissonville facility

By Joe MorrisStaff writer

NGK Spark Plugs USA Inc. is building another plant in Sissonville.
The manufacturer already runs an oxygen sensor plant and distribution center in Sissonville, employing about 220 people. The new plant, to be built alongside the existing facility, will assemble spark plugs and is likely to open around the middle of next year, according to a company news release issued Friday.

However, the company is still ironing out the final details and isn’t saying yet how many people it expects to hire, said Yoshitaka Narita, NGK’s chief financial officer and secretary-treasurer. The company will be ready to say more around the end of April, Narita said.

NGK decided to build because demand for its spark plugs is outstripping its Irvine, Calif., plant’s supply capacity and there’s no room there for expanding, according to the release.
The company researched locations for the new plant for about a year before deciding on Sissonville, Narita said. He wouldn’t disclose the other candidates.

“Based on the 12-year positive history of a dedicated work force and the cooperative efforts of governmental and private agencies, the commitment to West Virginia was an obvious choice,” the release said.

NGK said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Gov. Joe Manchin, along with the West Virginia Development Office and the Charleston Area Alliance, are working with the company on the plans.

“West Virginians have a friend in NGK, which has quadrupled the size of its work force over the past decade,” Rockefeller says in the NGK statement. “I knew that our workers, who are second to none, would make the company a success in West Virginia.”

The Sissonville plant opened in 1995 with 53 employees.

Manchin called NGK “a great partner with West Virginia.” The news of the expansion “is further evidence of the results we can achieve with our quality workforce and the cooperation of business and government.”

Each year, the Sissonville plant, measuring 112,000 square feet, makes around 10 million sensors, which gauge the oxygen content in exhaust gas. The 70,000-square-foot distribution center ships 19 million sensors and 28 million spark plugs annually.

The plant has won quality awards from each of its customers, including the Honda Triple Award for quality, productivity and delivery. Only two Honda suppliers, out of 600, got the award.
NGK’s corporate headquarters are in Nagoya, Japan. Its U.S. unit is based in Wixom, Mich.
To contact staff writer Joe Morris, use e-mail or call 348-5179.