“We’ve grown our hand mixer business substantially since we brought it back here. This is a big day for us. It’s a sign to us that Made in the USA is important for our consumers. They are rewarding us for bringing back jobs and bringing products to Greenville,” said Carl-Martin Lindahl, general manager and vice president of KitchenAid Small Appliances Globally.
The Greenville workforce’s reputation helped the company make the decision to bring production of the hand mixer back to America, Lindahl said.
“I think we believed the quality and productivity is exceptional. There are certain products we can make here better than anywhere in the world,” Lindahl said.
Lindahl said this year will be a record year for the company in production.
“If we can do it with the hand mixer, why not with other products to continue to bring back or to continue to launch new products at this facility here in Greenville, Ohio,” Greenville Plant Lead Ken Hossler said
In August, the company announced plans to nearly double its distribution size at its Greenville operation, which ships all of the company’s KitchenAid small appliances.
This is the second expansion at the Greenville location in recent years. The company opened this spring its $40 million, 218,000 square foot expansion to the manufacturing side of the building.
The new expansion will grow the company’s warehouse from 327,000 square feet to approximately 650,000 square feet. On Wednesday, company officials said they were on schedule to open the expansion in March 2017.
Employee Rebel Manship has been at Whirlpool for 18 years and was proud of the milestone.
“The future is looking bright for us,” Manship said. “We couldn’t have done it without all of the associates I have working with me.”
Whirlpool employs 10,000 workers in Ohio, including about 1,000 at its Greenville facility. The plant about an hour’s drive from Dayton is one of five Whirlpool manufacturing facilities in Ohio.
Steve Baker contributed to this story.
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