In an interview with Site Selection, Mark Gerstle, vice president of corporate quality and chief risk officer for Cummins, says the company only looked at existing plant sites, no greenfields, for this project,

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (left) talks to Cummins President Joe Loughrey, Cummins CEO Tim Solso and Roger Lang, Executive Director - Light- duty Diesel Manufacturing (l. to r.), on the floor of the Cummins Engine Plant following Cummins' October announcement.

first doing some field research under a code name in late 2005, then getting going in earnest during the summer of 2006. /
   "We went out and basically said, 'Before we were a code name, now this is Cummins, this is the project, these are the jobs,' and we gave them six to eight weeks turnaround time to get back to us with their bids. It was quick, but we'd already given them a lot of information. /
   "We started with about 10 states, then four, then two, then Indiana," he says of the process, whose chief criteria beyond education were financial factors related to tax incentives, logistics, labor cost and availability and energy. /
   Between $15 million and $30 million of the overall investment will go toward facility upgrades, with the balance going toward new capital equipment to manufacture and assemble the engine. Mark Land, director of public relations for Cummins, stresses the role of the Cummins Engine Plant as the company's flagship facility, and the fact that no literal expansion of building space will be needed. /
   Negotiating with the company's two unions – the Diesel Workers Union (DWU) and Office Committee Union (OCU) – had to happen first, and it didn't take long. /
   "Start to finish, about two weeks," says Gerstle. "I was doing most of the work with the states at the same time, and we were talking about who would get done quicker, and it turns out I lost that one. It was very amicable, very cordial, because it was adding 600 to 800 new jobs." /
   He's quick to point out the talks were not about concessions, but about terms, conditions, work rules, wages and benefits for workers in the new plant. /
   "Whenever we've been in a situation of adding business, I can't think of a time when it hasn't been a total partnership," he says, noting that the union leaders were among the most energetic speakers at the project announcement, where people were flowing out of the doorways to be a part of the good news. /
   "We had about 1,000 people there," adds Land, "and 99 percent were employees." /