Molex has expanded its global manufacturing footprint with the opening of a new factory in Guadalajara. The new 60,000 square-meter facility nearly doubles Molex’s footprint and manufacturing space in Guadalajara, with the potential to increase capacity by an additional 100,000 square meters to support advanced engineering and large-scale production for automotive, transportation and industrial customers in North America and around the world.
“Our history in Mexico spans more than 50 years, earning Molex a strong reputation for developing world-class facilities and engineering talent to deliver customer-focused solutions,” said Mike Bloomgren, SVP, president, transportation and industrial solutions, Molex. “The opening of a new factory in Guadalajara dedicated to transportation customers further enhances our ability to effectively and economically address the most complex challenges in automotive connectivity, battery management, vehicle safety and zonal architectures.”
Molex invested $130 million to develop the new facility, which features tools, technologies and processes to meet demand for interconnected solutions for tomorrow’s electric vehicles (EV), advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and connected vehicles. The fully integrated plant incorporates factory-of-the-future capabilities, including advanced production-line automation, autonomous robots, cutting-edge molding and assembly tools, as well as complete engineering and operations to optimize product development, supply chain management, quality testing and volume manufacturing.
The availability of onsite reliability and metrology lab testing will allow local engineers to improve product designs and speed development cycles. The local labs also reduce rework costs and time at critical product-development stages. The use of innovative tests, simulations and analyses are designed to deliver industry-leading quality, streamline product certifications and accelerate time to market.
An amenity-rich environment has been created to attract and retain highly skilled, local engineering talent. The company plans to grow its headcount from 200 employees to 300 by the end of the year. Moreover, the new Guadalajara plant complements the global footprint and customer focus of Molex’s Transportation & Industrial Solutions division, which includes facilities and technical centers in Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, Poland, South Korea and the United States.
Molex’s Guadalajara expansion also strategically shortens supply-chain cycles by enabling the local team in Mexico to expedite supply-and-demand decisions to mitigate product development and manufacturing risks. The opportunity to increase and align multiple, geographically dispersed supply sources improves Molex’s overall resiliency in addressing changing market dynamics and disruptions on behalf of automotive customers globally.
This is the second expansion the company has announced this month. Earlier in October, Molex announced the expansion of its existing facility in Hanoi, Vietnam, to include a new 16,000-square-meter facility, supporting more than 200 new jobs.Â
