Belvidere Assembly Plant
| Built | 1965 |
|---|---|
| Location | Belvidere, Illinois, United States |
| Coordinates | 42°14′10″N 88°52′16″W / 42.236°N 88.871°W |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Products | Jeep Cherokee (2017) |
| Area | 5,300,000 sq ft (490,000 m2) on 280 acres (1.1 km2) |
| Address |
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The Belvidere Assembly Plant is a Chrysler factory in Belvidere, Illinois, United States that assembles vehicles. The factory opened in 1965.
The factory was built in 1964 and 1965 in the south part of Belvidere, Illinois, adjacent to U.S. Route 20. The first production line vehicle was made on 7 July 1965.
The Belvidere Assembly Plant is adjacent to the Chrysler operated Belvidere Satellite Stamping Plant. The stamping plant produces sheet metal parts for the production line. The factory has 5,300,000 square feet (490,000 m2) of floor space over 280 acres (1.1 km2) of land. The factory had produced 5.9 million vehicles by the end of the 1993 model year.
In 2006, the factory became the first Chrysler plant to use a body shop consisting entirely of robotics. There are 780 robots in the body shop can make necessary tool changes automatically, within a 47-second cycle time. The factory is capable of building three models of vehicles as well as a test-building a fourth vehicle.
The Simulation (SIM) Room comprises 38,000 square feet (3,500 m2) of the factory and is used to create a miniature production process and to test the layout of job stations, and creating standard work instructions. A two-foot grid is painted on the floor to measure dimensions and employee walk-time during simulated production and efficiency modeling.
In 1985 there were 4,000 employees working at the plant. At the start of the Neon car production, there were 3,250 hourly and 250 salaried employees working at the factory as of 10 November 1993.
There were 2,650 employees working at the factory at the start of 2007 model year Jeep Compass production, up from 1,700 in 2005 when one shift of employees was in place. However, the third shift, which was first instituted in 2006, was discontinued in 2008. The plant was idled during the Chrysler's bankruptcy filing and became a one-shift operation from July 2009. A 'temporary' second shift was added by October 2009.
Production of vehicles dropped from 263,521 in 2008 to 84,609 in 2009.
The workforce is represented by the United Auto Workers, Local 1268 and 1761. There have been two UAW-ordered strikes in the plant's history. In 1973, there was a nine-day strike over the right to turn down overtime, pension funding, and health and safety measures. In 1981, there was a nine-day strike to receive pay parity with Ford and GM workers. Chrysler proposed eliminating several job classifications so workers could be required to perform more than one task.
Tomasz Gebka is the current plant manager.
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