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As JCB prepares to celebrate the 15th anniversary of its North American manufacturing headquarters in Savannah early next year, the world’s third-largest construction equipment maker is growing again.
This time, it’s adding a line of backhoe loaders to its manufacturing plant here.
To support the new line, JCB will add 100 jobs to its current workforce of 500-plus.
British-based and privately owned, JCB survived the downturn in the U.S. economy by going extra-lean — reducing its local workforce by nearly 50 percent between late 2008 and early 2009 — and retooling its 500,000-square-foot, high-tech manufacturing facility located on 1,000-plus acres fronting Interstate 95.
In late 2009, JCB President and CEO John Patterson announced the Savannah plant would be solely responsible for the engineering, design and manufacture of all the company’s skid steer loaders, a product line that represents more than 60 percent of the construction market in North America and 40 percent worldwide.
Less than a year later, the first models of JCB’s all-new line of skid steer and compact track loaders rolled off the production floor.
Since then, the JCB line of skid steer and compact track loaders, with the only machine in the industry to have a side door entry which allows safe entry and exit from the machine, have been growing in popularity, helping the company to consecutive record year earnings.
“When we started this project, our goal was to distribute these machines worldwide,” Patterson said in a recent interview. “We are now shipping approximately 50 percent of our production overseas through the Port of Savannah.
“We are already supplying a global market, which has exceeded our expectations.”
The other JCB product produced exclusively in Savannah is the High Mobility Engineer Excavator, known in military circles worldwide as the HMEE. With a new contract from the U.S. Army that runs through 2018 and interest from the U.S. Marine Corps and Allied forces, Patterson expects demand for that product to continue to remain strong.
Growing in 2015
With both the HMEE and JCB’s 17 models of compact loaders already enhancing the local plant’s impact on the company as a whole, it was time to bring in a third line – the newest evolution of JCB’s backhoe loader.
The backhoe loader, invented by JCB in 1946, was the company’s first product and continues to be its best-seller worldwide.
“The single largest market for our backhoe loaders is India, followed by the United States,” Patterson said.
“Leveraging our global position as the market leader for this product, we’ve developed what is referred to as a global-specification product – one that sells well in several key markets globally.”
This universality enables the company to increase the volume and remain competitive, he said.
The new model — the 3CX Global — was built with the North American rental market in mind.
“We are beginning to make this product now in several factories across the world and, because we have the second-largest market here in our backyard, it makes sense to build it here in Savannah,” Patterson said. “The savings in shipping costs alone will make us even more competitive.”
The first 3CX came off the line here Nov. 1, with volume production expected to continue to crank up in the first part of 2015.
That means new jobs, starting in January.
“We’re looking for welders, painters, quality engineers, assembly workers,” he said. “It’s much like who we have now, just more of them.”
Leasing on rise
One segment of the market that has taken off recently is the trend toward leasing, Patterson said.
“It’s been a pretty stark shift in the last 10 years or so, driven primarily by the recession when private contractors didn’t have the work or couldn’t get the funds to purchase equipment.” He said, noting that short-term rentals had gone from approximately 10 percent of the market to 40 percent since the downturn began.
“Now, as the economy continues to improve and confidence is on the rise, customers who have had this experience of renting are starting to look to leasing, for a fixed fee for a longer term, such as three years or five years.
“It’s giving them the opportunity to build equity in the product, making it easier to go to their bank at the end of the lease and purchase the machine if they so choose,” Patterson said, adding that leasing builds an affordable bridge between renting and owning.
“When you look at all the things we’ve been trying to do in the last five or six years — increasing sales, growing our dealer network and solidifying our importance to the company as a whole — I’d say we’re in a very good place.
“The future looks bright.”
ON THE WEB
For more information on JCB and available jobs, go to www.jcb.com.