GE doubles capacity of water technology manufacturing facility in China
As part of its continued investment in China’s rapidly growing cleaner energy and water infrastructure sectors, GE announced it has doubled the production capacity of its water technologies manufacturing plant in Wuxi New Zone in eastern China. The expanded facility has dramatically reduced the time it takes for GE to fulfill local customer orders as the government is pushing to modernize the country’s energy and water infrastructure to help sustain China’s strong economic growth.
The Wuxi project is part of GE’s broader initiatives to extend its global and regional manufacturing supply chains and deepen its local business relationships in China. In November 2010, GE announced plans to invest more than $2 billion through 2012 to expand its innovation and customer support capabilities in China and to create new technology and financial services partnerships with leading Chinese companies.
In addition to water treatment chemical products that have been produced in Wuxi since 2004, the facility also supplies industry leading recycling, filtration and processing technologies—such as reverse osmosis (RO) filtration and ultrafiltration (UF) equipment—to a wide range of industrial customers in the steel, energy, petrochemicals and food and beverage sectors. GE also supports regional government efforts to increase access to cleaner water for commercial and residential uses.
By expanding the Wuxi plant, GE has been able to add several product lines and expand its on-site membrane-element fabrication capacity.
“The expansion of the Wuxi manufacturing facility will greatly enhance our capability to help our customers implement projects to more quickly comply with China’s increasingly stringent, cleaner air and water regulations,” said Jeff Connelly, vice present, engineered systems—water and process technologies for GE Power & Water.
For example, a key advantage of the expansion is that the lead-time from order to shipment can be reduced by as much as six to 10 weeks, compared to ordering the same product from a GE manufacturing facility in the US.
GE has invested millions of dollars to create a manufacturing facility, complete with a high-purity clean room classification 1,000 with an area size of approximately 100 square meters, increased automation of fabrication processes, expanded testing facilities and advanced membrane autopsy capabilities.
This is the second time GE has expanded its Wuxi facility since it opened in 2004, underscoring the surging demand for technology and services to help government and industrial customers reduce the environmental impacts associated with China’s economic expansion activities.
Originally the plant supplied specialty chemicals to customers in China, but in 2008, GE completed a 10,000-square-meter expansion to begin manufacturing advanced water filtration technologies for use by industry and municipalities.
The Wuxi team collaborates with GE’s China Technology Center in Shanghai to ensure its products meet the unique requirements for China.
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