In addition to opening its new $160-million facility in Inchinnan, Scotland, in 2004, Rolls-Royce is also upgrading at multiple Scottish sites.
      "Essentially, the major selection criterion with both Inchinnan [in 2002] and Hucknall [in 2004] was the existing high-quality capability of the work force in those locations," says Gary Atkins, communications manager for Rolls-Royce plc. "Hucknall was one of four new domestic manufacturing facilities we announced as receiving the company's go-ahead last year. The knowledge and experience of the work force was a key factor to locating our main Combustion Systems base at Hucknall, a decision that also involved the run-down of a second, smaller unit in Bristol."
      Hucknall, near Nottingham in the East Midlands, will see more than $54 million of a total four-facility investment of $188 million, with the balance going to facilities in Derby, Bristol and Barnoldswick, Lancashire. Around 300 workers will gradually transfer to Hucknall from existing facilities there and in Bristol, to a 150,700-sq.-ft. (14,000-sq.-m.) complex that should be fully operational by the end of 2005. The new facility comes even as Rolls-Royce moves its jet engine testing facility across the pond from Hucknall to NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Miss.
      Rolls-Royce's three principal sites in Scotland — at Inchinnan, East Kilbride and Dalgety Bay — have certainly been part of helping the company achieve a 5-percent reduction in product costs in 2003, which it anticipated achieving again in 2004. In addition, as of mid-2004, sales per employee had improved by 40 per cent over the previous five years.
      The Midlands region was also the recipient of a February 2005 announcement by France's LaFarge SA, which will be spending $58 million to expand its plaster board production there by 50 percent.