SL Tennessee employee Ricky Bean at a hot plate welding station in the assembly area for Cadillac tail lights.
CLINTON—Tennessee officials and SL Tennessee executives on Friday announced 1,000 new auto parts manufacturing jobs as part of a $80.5 million expansion in the Clinton I-75 Industrial Park in Clinton. It could be the largest expansion of industrial employment in Anderson County since World War II.
The South Korean company plans to invest $80.5 million to build a 250,000-square-foot plant on Frank L. Diggs Drive in the industrial park. It will be SL Tennessee’s LLC third building in the park, and the company’s fifth expansion since locating in Clinton in 2001. The new building will manufacture automobile head lights and tail lamps for General Motors.
Construction on the new building in Clinton will begin in August, and the new plant could be operating by April 2015.
Here is a collection of photos from Friday’s event.
SL America President Y.K. Woo, center, celebrates the announcement of 1,000 new jobs with Gov. Bill Haslam, second from right; U.S. Senator Bob Corker, right; and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, left.
SL Tennessee is on Frank L. Diggs Drive in the Clinton I-75 Industrial Park.
SL Tennessee workers assemble Buick LaCrosse headlights in Clinton on Friday. The South Korean company’s lighting plant has about 500 workers and includes molding, coating, and assembly areas.
Assembly associate Chris Whalen helps assemble a Chevy Malibu headlight. Workers assemble about 800 headlights per day.
Assembly technician Joshua Fox, right, checks quality on brake pedal assemblies for Chevy Cruz vehicles on one of two assembly lines that use a mix of automation and manual labor. Fox is on one of two assembly lines that produce about 1,620 assemblies per eight-hour shift in the SL Tennessee chassis plant, which employes about 250 salaried and hourly workers.
A tail light assembly on a Chevy Sonic LT that was made by SL Tennessee in Clinton. Workers there also made the head light assembly and gear shifter.
A display of gear shifters made by SL Tennessee workers, including for Chevy Volt, Impala, and Malibu, and Cadillac CTS and Buick LaCrosse vehicles.
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