Belvidere Assembly Plant - History and Facilities

History and Facilities

The factory was completed in 1965 in the south part of Belvidere, Illinois adjacent to U.S. Route 20. The factory is designated the Belvidere Assembly Plant and is adjacent to the Chrysler operated Belvidere Satellite Stamping Plant. The stamping plant produces sheet metal parts for the production line. The factory has 3,300,000 square feet (310,000 m2) of floor space over 280 acres (1.1 km2) of land. The factory had produced 5.9 million vehicles by the end of the 1993 model year.

In 2006, the factory became the first Chrysler plant to use a body shop consisting entirely of robotics. There are 780 robots in the body shop can make necessary tool changes automatically, within a 45-second cycle time. The factory is capable of building 3 models of vehicles as well as a test-building a fourth vehicle.

The Simulation (SIM) Room comprises 38,000 square feet (3,500 m2) of the factory and is used to create a miniature production process and to test the layout of job stations, and creating standard work instructions. A two foot grid is painted on the floor to measure dimensions and employee walk-time during simulated production and efficiency modeling.