Last month,
Yaskawa America announced
plans to invest $180 million to build a new headquarters campus in the
Franklin Business Park.
The company, a manufacturer of AC inverter drives and motion control and robotics automation systems, is currently headquartered in Waukegan, Illinois, will build between six and seven new buildings and consolidate its existing Illinois and Wisconsin plant operations in Franklin. The consolidation process will take between eight and 10 years. Currently, 650 people work at the Waukegan facility and approximately 200 work in Franklin.
The new campus will include a corporate headquarters, training, and lab building; manufacturing and packaging facilities; and robotics and semiconductor production operations. It will encompass over 800,000 square feet.
Yaskawa America is a subsidiary of Japan-based
Yaskawa Electric Corp.
BizTimes reporter
Ashley Smart recently spoke with
Mike Knapek, CEO of Yaskawa America, to learn why the company decided to invest in Franklin and what is planned once the expansion project is complete.
Below are portions of the conversation:
When did discussions on a new U.S. headquarters start?
"We'd been looking at consolidation, probably over the last 10 years. We were looking at, how are we going to grow moving forward and where's the right location? We have a lot of structure in Illinois and we have some facilities out in California. We thought we would just build one very large facility and it would include everything. We were going down that path right around the start of COVID. We were interested in buying a piece of land in Oak Creek right off I-94 and 27th St. Our thought process has always been to try to find some location that could help accommodate both the current Wisconsin associates and the Illinois associates."
How did you land on Franklin?
"One of the businesses that we have within the inverter business is called medium voltage. During the period of recovery after COVID, it grew very quickly for us. We kind of ran out of space and that's what brought us to Franklin. We had looked at the property in Franklin and a couple other properties in Pleasant Prairie. We had also found two properties in Illinois, one was in Vernon Hills and one was in Libertyville. The nice thing about the Franklin facility was it had some internal equipment that would be very beneficial for us."
Were any other states considered?
"We did consider Texas, South Carolina and Kentucky, but to be honest, those considerations were just kind of a double check…are we making a good financial decision for the company and is this the right scenario? Those quickly got discounted."
What work currently happens at the Franklin plant?
"It's what we call our value-added business. The actual inverter is still made down in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. Then there's a truck that comes up every day and delivers the production. In the future, everything will be in the same industrial park in Franklin. All that production that's currently in Buffalo Grove will come here. Two things will happen. Most of our production lines for our inverter bits are designed and built in Japan. We will buy those production lines from Japan. We will also buy some new ones, and we will relocate some of the ones that are in Illinois up to Wisconsin."
Is Yaskawa planning to invest heavily in the humanoid robot market?
"Think about a robot arm as your leg all the way to the end of your hand. It's potentially on the ground, so it's got some fixture to it, and then it's got all the joints. It has your ankle joint, your knee joint, your hip joint, your shoulder, your elbow, your wrist, and potentially your hands. Depending on the complexity of the robot manipulator, it can be what's called six-axis or seven-axis. A humanoid robot is just like it sounds. It's the full body. When you go through the math of what that means, it's 24-access usually. It's many more servo motors, many more amplifiers, and a much more complex motion controller. We have not decided whether we're going to be in the humanoid robot business or not. The common belief is that the robotics business is just growing at some very high rate but because a lot of robotics is tied to automotive, the overall business kind of ebbs and flows."
How much revenue does Yaskawa’s current robotics business bring?
"In the Americas, of our three businesses (inverter, motion and robotics) it's basically about 40% inverter, 30% motion and 30% robotics."
Is Yaskawa hoping to buy any more land in Franklin?
"We've entered into an agreement for the land that was owned by Carmex (
Carma Labs), which is where the robotics building will be. We have not purchased that land yet, but we were working through the details. Once we do that, we won't need any other land or buildings at this point."
Is Yaskawa confident it can fill 700 new positions?
"We believe that the 700 (figure) comes from our current workforce in Illinois and some growth. We believe that a reasonably high percentage of our existing workforce will come to Franklin. They will either commute or relocate. We definitely have to acquire additional local talent, no question, but we're hoping a good percentage of it will come from our existing workforce."
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