GM opens engine plant in Uzbekistan
by CanadianManufacturing.com Staff
General Motors and its local joint venture partner UzAvtosanoat opened a new engine plant in Uzbekistan—GM's most significant powertrain investment in Central Asia.
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan—General Motors and its local joint venture partner UzAvtosanoat opened a new engine plant in Uzbekistan—GM’s most significant powertrain investment in Central Asia.
GM has a 52 per cent stake in GM Powertrain Uzbekistan and its partner has a 48-per cent stake. The facility, which covers 40 hectares, is GM’s first engine plant in Uzbekistan and it will produce more than 225,000 new fuel-efficient Ecotec 1.2-litre and 1.5-litre engines for GM small passenger cars sold around the world.
The first engines produced at the plant starting this month will be installed in the Chevrolet Spark mini car that commands 94 percent share of the Uzbekistan domestic market and is exported to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The plant features a lean manufacturing footprint and has adopted GM’s advanced global manufacturing processes and technology. It is one of only a few GM powertrain plants in the world with co-located assembly and foundry facilities and will be Central Asia’s only manufacturing plant capable of producing finished machined components such as cylinder heads, cylinder blocks and crankshafts.
The new facility, which will employ up to 1,200 people, has cutting-edge computer equipment to enhance precision and ensure high build quality and the flexibility to produce several engine variants with changing market demand.
The plant is equipped with advanced environmental-protection processes throughout the facility, including the most modern wastewater treatment technology in Uzbekistan with the purest discharge of any facility of its kind within GM. A final reverse osmosis treatment system ensures water leaving the plant will be as clean as drinking water
The Uzbekistan plant joins facilities in China and Korea as a producers of GM’s Ecotec 1.2-litre and 1.5-litre engines. Both engines use a cast-iron block and aluminum head, with dual overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder. They are both Euro V emissions compliant.
GM Uzbekistan employs approximately 6,600 people and produces more than 200,000 Chevrolet passenger vehicles annually for domestic sale and export.
