Velvac, a truck equipment and RV aftermarket supplier, opened a new manufacturing facility in Reynosa, Mexico.
The New Berlin, Wisconsin-based company moved operations from its previous location in Reynosa to the new facility.
“This investment further demonstrates our long-term commitment to the Reynosa area,” President and CEO Jeff Porter said. “We have an exceptionally talented group of employees there who have been instrumental to the success we have enjoyed.”
Porter said the new plant was designed with “significant expansion” in mind. The new plant is 1 mile from the international bridge in Pharr, Texas, and 1.5 miles from its previous Reynosa plant.
“So we feel we are ideally located to service our North American customer base,” he said.
The new facility will help deliver numerous operational benefits, Velvac stated.
“We expect it will help us to improve safety, productivity and facilitate our lean, continuous improvement activities,” Chief Operating Officer Dan McGrew said. “Consolidating multiple locations will allow us to improve flow and eliminate waste and, in addition, it enhances our ability to attract talent and to implement visual controls, pull systems and other lean practices. The Covid crisis certainly complicated the construction process, but our team did a superb job of planning and executing the move process and brought the project in as planned.”
Velvac started business in 1934 under the name The Vacuum Power Equipment Co. It has been manufacturing products in Reynosa for 20 years.
“The new facility allows us to consolidate multiple locations in the Reynosa area to accommodate current and future growth,” Porter said. “We have seen significant growth in our business in recent years and are also planning to in-source the manufacture of certain products that we currently import from Asia, so building the new plant was an easy decision to make.”
