The new highly automated Jeep Liberty plant in Toledo, Ohio is a case in point. It employs 1,000 fewer workers than its neighbor Cherokee plant. The factory's 2002 model Jeep Liberty SUV is hitting sales floors now, after the automaker poured $1.7 billion into its development. Chrysler spent $750 million on the plant and $250 million on the sophisticated tooling and equipment, receiving more than $200 million in financial incentives.
      The facility uses 300 robots and will employ as many as 2,100 workers at full capacity. Not only is the plant full of laser beams, cameras and computers, but the company's managers spent significant time studying high-pressure work environments outside the auto industry where quality is a must, not a goal.
      According to the Detroit News, designing the plant in virtual terms kept construction costs to $54 per sq. ft. The industry average is $70 to $80 per sq. ft.
      But the real opportunity may be the automation of the plant's 431 suppliers.
      In sectors like the automobile industry, advanced manufacturing is the order of the day. Whereas an OEM's supplier may have been known in the past for providing just-in-time delivery of a part or handful of parts, today that same company, no matter what the tier, can make that OEM just a part of its own advanced strategy.
      Such a drive has given rise to clusters of technology parks in many states and countries. In Michigan it's called the SmartZones initiative. The state has also invested $60 million on 18 educational centers for high-tech training. Michigan is home to 19 vehicle assembly plants, more than 700 OEM suppliers and 90 percent of the total U.S. automotive R&D activity. GM is pouring more than $2 billion into two new assembly plants in Lansing. More than 360 R&D tech centers -- including those from the likes of 3M, EDS, Motorola and Delphi -- have helped Michigan rank second nationally in total R&D spending, and fourth in the number of high-tech workers, with more than 500,000.
      In Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan holds the honor of No. 1 public university in the nation for R&D spending and leads the way in research in Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, or MEMS. A full 25 percent of the federal grants earned by the university are devoted to manufacturing. Such work includes antennas, microwave switches and microinstrumentation, as well as robotics and machine vision.
      Among the advanced manufacturing firms setting up operations in an area dubbed "Automation Alley":

• Nanovation Technologies, which makes integrated optic devices, has located its $41.6 million corporate headquarters in Northville, creating more than 500 new jobs.
• AGC America located an R&D facility in Ypsilanti Township to develop prototypes for auto window-related products and technologies.
• Motorola has established a $23.7 million tech center in Farmington Hills, home to the company's Automotive and Industrial Electronics Group and the Telematics Communications Group.
• Acuson, which supplies ultrasound imaging equipment, has located a $14.6 million engineering, R&D and support center in Ann Arbor.