Investor Watch: February 27, 2020

ADVANCED MANUFACTURING

Automation is One Thing, AI is Another

Brookings analysis shows which areas of the U.S. are most and least exposed.

It may be frigid where you are, but pitchers, catchers and everybody else in baseball are now in full spring training mode in Florida and Arizona. In the site selection world, we’re familiar with the notion of companies wanting to be in “the NFL cities” or “the MLB cities.” But do Triple-A cities hold their own too? If you’re planning a national Triple-A ballpark tour, you’ll not only find yourself in a good number of fun places, but in economically healthy cities as well.

I ran all 30 Triple-A affiliate cities through the Conway Analytics database and found that since 2015, the National League farm system is outslugging the American League farm system by 235 projects, giving the National League faithful yet another reason to refer to their American League counterparts as the “junior circuit.” (The real reason? The American League claimed major league status 25 years after the National League, in 1901.) Altogether, these 30 Triple-A metro areas account for 1,937 projects — 7.6% of the total number of U.S. projects we’ve tracked in that time frame.

— Adam Bruns

GERMANY

The VARTA AG Group, which develops and manufacturers microbatteries, household batteries and energy storage systems technology for such high-tech consumer products as wireless headsets, is investing €125 million and creating 600 new jobs across two sites in Ellwangen and Nördlingen. New production facilities will be constructed at both locations. The impetus? Keeping pace with a lithium-ion battery market that is experiencing annual growth of around 30%. “Following last year’s plans to increase production capacity to over 150 million cells per year from 2022, VARTA AG will now expand its capacity to 200 million cells per year, with implementation scheduled for the end of 2021,” says the company. “As early as mid-2020, the company will be able to produce at least 100 million cells per year.”

Source: Conway Analytics

USA

Completing an expansion originally announced in January 2017, Toyota Indiana (TMMI) in January announced it had invested an additional $700 million and added 150 new jobs to complete its plant modernization project. The project will help meet demand for the 2020 Toyota Highlander. Since 1996, Toyota Indiana’s total investment is approximately $5 billion and total employment exceeds 7,000. The investment is part of a broader commitment from Toyota to invest $13 billion in its U.S. operations over a five-year period through 2021. To date, Toyota has committed approximately $7.1 billion of the announced total; cumulative direct investment in the U.S. exceeds $28.4 billion. In addition to the plant investment, Toyota Indiana committed $1 million to a new, regional workforce program that will connect students with career opportunities in advanced manufacturing while still in high school.

Source: Conway Analytics