Exhaust system maker plans to hire 90 new employees

FRANKLIN — Faurecia Exhaust Systems Inc.’s main U.S. customers, Ford and General Motors, struggle with sinking stock prices and downgraded debt.

But business is booming for Faurecia itself.

The company’s 2301 Commerce Center Drive plant plans to hire about 90 workers in coming months, some 60 of them for hourly jobs and the rest in salaried positions.

A maker of automotive exhaust systems for the Ford Focus and Freestar, Crown Victoria police cruisers and other models, Faurecia is expanding everywhere, it seems. Last week, the company announced plans to open facilities in Northwood and Toledo, Ohio, Fraser and Sterling Heights, Mich., and South Carolina.

France-based Faurecia’s fourth quarter 2005 sales rose 5 percent to about 2.8 billion euros. Automobile production in Europe is slowing, the company said, but outside Europe sales have jumped more than 30 percent, pegged to currency exchange rates.

And exhaust system sales? They shot up 28.6 percent in 2005’s final quarter, the company said.

There are reasons for that, said Mark Fisher, the Franklin plant’s human resources manager.

“Our quality record at this site has been very strong,” Fisher said.

Today, 320 employees work at the 156,000-square-foot Franklin plant. “That will grow to about 400 before all is said and done in 2006,” Fisher said.

The hiring comes as a stark contrast to another auto parts manufacturer, Delphi, which seeks bankruptcy protection and plans to cut jobs, wages and benefits.

In all, Faurecia has 160 facilities in 28 countries. The Franklin plant opened in early 2000, drawn by Interstate 75’s proximity, among other factors.

Plans to make exhaust systems for the Lincoln Aviator at the site, with pre-production ramping up in June or July, triggered the need for more workers, Fisher said.

He credits not only quality but Faurecia’s “lean” manufacturing methods for sparking growth. These methods cut production “variables” and waste among machines and workers, Fisher said.

“If you go to a Toyota plant, they get as specific as telling you which hand to use” while working, Fisher said.

Efficiency, in other words, means more than cutting worker rolls.

“It’s interesting because I think the public perception of ‘lean,’ the blue-collar perception of lean, is that we actually eliminate people,” Fisher said.

The waste-cutting concept extends to plant and team size, too. The company ensures that supervisors don’t oversee more than 25 employees each and plants don’t have more than 500 workers, Fisher said.