ZKW expands locations in Mexico and Slovakia

The ZKW Group is expanding its manufacturing capacity at its international locations. The plant in Silao, Mexico – which went into operation in 2015 – will be expanded by 19’000 square meters of production space by the end of 2020. With this the company is also planning to double the workforce by 2023. The site in Silao – which manufactures headlights for car manufacturers such as BMW, Daimler, Ford Lincoln, GM, Volkswagen and Volvo – will receive around EUR 67.5 million in investments. The largest expansion project in ZKW's history has already gone into operation in Krušovce, Slovakia. Here the production area was doubled to around 78’000 square meters. With around 2’500 employees, the plant is ZKW's second largest manufacturing location. In Krušovce, main and fog lights are manufactured and new lighting systems are developed. "Despite the economically tense situation in the automotive industry, we are continuing to expand our locations in order to remain competitive in the long term," says Oliver Schubert, CEO of the ZKW Group, in a press release. When completed, ZKW plant in Silao, Mexico, will have grown from 22,000 to 41,000 square meters. The company says it is planning to fit the new expansion with equipment for the production of automotive lighting systems – such as plastic injection molding systems, hard coating for coating plastic lenses, painting systems, metal vapor deposition systems for reflectors and headlight assembly lines. Completion for the Mexican expansion is scheduled for October 2020, and start of production in August 2021. The number of employees is expected to increase from the current 700 to around 1,400. In Krušovce, ZKW expanded the plant built in 2007 by an additional 37,500 square meters. With the expansion, in which ZKW invested around EUR 155 million euros, the production area was doubled and a new office wing with a training center was created.