History
In June 1984, American Motors Corporation (AMC) established an agreement with the governments of Ontario and Canada to build a new assembly plant. Both the national and provincial governments loaned AMC C$100 million each to build the C$764 million facility. The agreement also included a royalty to the governments equal to 1% of the sales price of every vehicle produced at the facility.
The infrastructure builder EllisDon Construction completed the US$260 million (US$581,627,162 in 2012 dollars ) plant and associated buildings. The factory was opened by AMC in 1986 as Bramalea Assembly, a state-of-the-art robotics-based assembly facility with 2,950,000 square feet (274,000 m2) of floor space located on 269 acres (108.9 ha) specifically designed to produce the Eagle Premier.
The production line speed was initially about 250 cars per shift with only one shift scheduled. There were frequent layoffs at this new factory while AMC's old Brampton plant located at Kennedy Road worked steady producing Jeep Wranglers.
This facility was acquired (along with the rest of AMC) by Chrysler in August 1987. The factory was ranked tops in Chrysler's 1988 quality audit of the cars produced in each of automaker's plants.
Production of the Chrysler LH platform cars began in June 1992 and continued with the updated LH cars in 1997. Production switched to the rear-wheel drive Chrysler LX platform cars in January 2004.
The attached Brampton Satellite Stamping, which opened in 1991, was built for the launch of the Chrysler LH platform.
At that time, Brampton Assembly operated with three shifts of production. It is the city of Brampton's largest employer, with over 4,200 people working there.
On July 19, 2007 Chrysler Group announced an investment of US$1.2 billion in the Brampton plant for upgrades to the Chrysler 300 series, Dodge Magnum, and Dodge Charger, as well as a $500 million manufacturing investment to prepare for European-market LX platform product loading.
On November 1, 2007 Chrysler LLC announced that it was ending the third shift in Brampton with the loss of 1,000 direct jobs as well as declaring that production of the Dodge Magnum in Brampton will end in early 2008.
On May 1, 2009, both the Brampton Assembly and Windsor Assembly plants were shut down as a result of Chrysler's bankruptcy protection filing on April 30 in the United States, affecting about 2,700 employees at the Brampton Assembly and 4,400 at the Windsor Assembly. A Chrysler parts plant in Etobicoke, Toronto operated until May 10, when it was closed down for 30 to 60 days, affecting 300 employees, while it went through restructuring under court-ordered creditor protection.
After the reorganization, Chrysler announced the launch of new models of the 300 and Charger to be produced in the Brampton assembly plant, beginning in 2010.
The factory began production of the redesigned 2011 Chrysler 300 in January 2011. At this time total employment was 2,871 (2,733 hourly; 138 salaried) working two shifts.
Read more about this topic: Brampton Assembly
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)