Kickstart: Bringing jobs to where workers live

Auto supplier Gentex Corp.'s drive to find employees has seen it add Spanish-language shifts and begin building an on-site child care program. Now it's adding a new manufacturing site closer to potential employees' homes so those workers won't face a long and expensive commute.

Gentex currently has all of its production in the small town of Zeeland, Mich. By opening a satellite production facility in Grand Rapids — about 30 miles east of Zeeland — it hopes to tap into a larger employee base, the company said in a news release.

Gentex is a Tier 1 supplier of mirrors and electronics to the auto industry. The Grand Rapids plant will handle subassembly components for HomeLink, an integrated system for operating garage doors and other home automation devices that is built into mirror system housings.

"Rising transportation costs make commuting increasingly difficult, so if Gentex wants to recruit employees from Grand Rapids, we need to be here," said Gentex President and CEO Steve Downing.

Doing business keeps getting harder for auto suppliers that must handle not only the routine headaches of changing production rates and quality, but also increased complexity from electric vehicles.

Our sister paper Automotive News notes a study from Actify, a Detroit-based management solutions provider, and ABI Research showing that with the influx of new EV programs, the average supplier is 30-50 percent behind schedule, running above their cost targets or both.

"You still have internal combustion engine vehicles that are being produced, and then you have electric and hybrid versions sometimes being produced on the same platform," Terry English, director of program management for injection molding, finishing and tooling supplier EG Industries, told AN's John Irwin. "You can't put a different program manager on each version because there are too many crossovers. You don't want three people working on what is basically the same project, just different variations on it. So all that does is multiply the number of programs one manager needs to take care of."

Of course the auto industry isn't the only one facing new complexities in doing business. PN's Steve Toloken watched the opening day of debate in California as the government, environmental groups and packaging representatives talked about how to implement the state's new extended producer responsibility rules.

"All these EPR discussions are going to have a big role in packaging choices," Steve writes in his Pellets and Politics blog. "The goal in all those states is figuring out how to build — and pay for — much better recycling systems for packaging."

Members of a producer responsibility organization, who haven't yet been named, will be part of process of developing each state's EPR rules.

"You can be assured that the decisions brand owners make to meet the law will filter through the supply chain to plastics packaging companies," Steve writes. "That's one point of EPR, to steer packaging decisions."