The Mexican Connection
It’s no surprise that US Marine’s strategy for the future is tied to its operation in Mexico. The division’s parent company, Brunswick, has explained more than once the role the new manufacturing facility plays in its global initiatives.
But the extent to which this one manufacturing location is driving US Marine’s success may surprise many industry insiders.
The division plans to create more than 20 new boat models per year starting in 2005, and the Reynosa, Mexico-based plant is tied directly to its ability to achieve this goal. The new plant – which is currently expanding – provides much greater efficiency than existing plants could match.
“The other plants we’ve had for some time, so there are barriers to improving efficiency based on layout,” says Dave Taylor, vice president of sales and marketing. “We didn’t have those constraints, so we were able to go in there and set up manufacturing processes with the plant’s layout in mind that would speak to better efficiency. The other thing we did is we took a brand new boat and started it there. So were able to design a boat for the facility, design the layout for manufacturing, and do all of those things in concert, which you rarely get a chance to do in this industry.”
While US Marine is currently building the Bayliner 175 and 185 in Mexico, the expansion will allow it to migrate more models, including more Bayliner runabouts and some Maxum products. Taylor added that building Trophy models there is “not out of the question” in the future.
The other benefit of the Mexico plant is that it has driven volume in the dealerships, causing the entire company to prosper.
“It has lifted our entire sales across all models, so not only are we employing a lot of people down there, in each of our other plants around the states, we have increased our labor pool significantly,” Taylor explains. “We’re not shifting labor out of the U.S.; we’ve actually increased labor. We’re adding resources in design and engineering. We’re adding another $5 million in personnel in 2005 to support the product plan. In each of our plants, we have increased our labor based on increased volumes.”