Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is planning to start the commercial production of automotive turbochargers at its manufacturing plant in Franklin, Indiana, in 2014 to meet the rising demand in the US.
The turbocharger production will be launched at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Climate Control facility, under a shared factory scheme, and will be operated as a production plant of Mitsubishi Engine North America (MENA).
MHI will install automated production lines at the Franklin plant's three final assembly lines, which will allow securing globally unified quality, while 2-dimensional barcode tags will be used to improve traceability of parts.
Following the completion of installing all the required equipments, the plant will begin production with an initial capacity of 600,000 units per year, which would be sequentially increased to 1,200,000 units.
Cartridges, which are the chief elements of turbochargers, will be provided by Mitsubishi Turbocharger Asia.
According to MHI, the demand for turbochargers for small gasoline engines has been rising to comply with tight fuel regulations including Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standard.
The firm is also aiming to capture 30% global share by 2016 and to sell 10 million turbochargers by the period.
