Mack’s Macungie plant marks 40 year anniversary

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Fleet Owner / November 19, 2015

First Mack highway truck assembled at the Lehigh Valley Operations manufacturing facility – an F711ST model – rolled off its production line on Nov. 19, 1975. Today all Mack trucks are assembled at the facility.

Mack Trucks noted that its Lehigh Valley Operations manufacturing facility Mack, located in Lower Macungie Township, PA, crossed the four-decade mark on Nov. 19 this year.

Site preparation for the one million square-foot facility began in May 1974, with construction completed in less than one year. The plant’s layout was designed in-house by Mack employees, without the help of outside consultants, to maximize manufacturing efficiency and flexibility.

With a 700-strong workforce, the first trucks produced at Mack Lehigh Valley Operations included Mack CF model fire apparatus, Mack F model cabover highway trucks and off-highway models like the Mack M series mining trucks and the Mack Pack articulated bottom dump.

In conjunction with this anniversary mark, Mack said it is changing the name of the facility from Macungie Cab & Vehicle Assembly to Mack Lehigh Valley Operations, highlighting the site’s regional impact.

“This new name identifies our heritage, but also more accurately captures our operational footprint and the contributions of our employees who live throughout the region,” said Wade Watson, VP and GM of Mack Lehigh Valley Operations. “Although we are celebrating four decades of success at our plant, we have been revitalizing the facility with innovative systems and tools that already give our operation a very modern feel, and we are not yet complete with our updates.”

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Today marks 40 years of manufacturing for Mack's Lower Macungie plant

The Morning Call / November 19, 2015

Forty years ago Thursday, Mack Trucks' then-new manufacturing facility in Lower Macungie Township completed its first highway truck, a Mack F711ST model.

Now, all Mack trucks built for the North American market are assembled at the sprawling 1 million-square-foot facility. The facility also assembles Mack trucks for export to countries outside North America, such as Venezuela and Peru.

"Over the past 40 years, we have proudly assembled thousands of Mack models for customers around the world," Stephen Roy, president of Mack Trucks North America, said in a statement. "Each employee's precision and dedication also has helped solidify Mack's reputation for building some of the toughest, highest-quality and most durable trucks on the road."

The local plant had another productive month in October, according to a report released Thursday by Mack's parent company, the Sweden-based Volvo Group.

Mack delivered 2,673 trucks worldwide in October, up 10 percent from 2,421 one year earlier. Of those trucks, 2,486 — 93 percent of the worldwide total — were delivered in North America.

Heavy truck production is expected to peak this year. For example, Volvo expects the total North American retail market for heavy-duty trucks to approach 310,000 trucks in 2015.

The company is anticipating lower — but still solid — demand of 280,000 trucks in 2016. To adjust to the market, the local Mack plant will likely be hit with layoffs. Mack spokesman Christopher Heffner said in an email Thursday "it's still too soon to say how many employees will be affected."

Construction of the Lower Macungie plant moved fast.

Site preparation for the facility began in May 1974, Mack said, with construction beginning shortly thereafter. The massive plant was completed in less than one year.

The plant's layout was designed in-house by Mack employees to "maximize manufacturing efficiency and flexibility," the company said.

But the plant now requires some refurbishing.

Wade Watson, vice president and general manager of Mack's Lehigh Valley operations, said last week that Mack wants to expand the building's south end by adding receiving docks, which would improve efficiency, and a new facade, aimed at boosting customer experience. If all goes according to plan, Watson said he hopes to have both improvements completed by the end of 2017.

"We're committed to the Lehigh Valley," Watson said Nov. 11. "We're looking at ways to invest and make it a more efficient operation here, so that's the intent."

While looking to increase productivity, Mack's Lower Macungie plant is already a model of energy efficiency.

In 2013, Mack announced the facility was the first U.S. manufacturing facility to receive a platinum-level Superior Energy Performance certification in the Mature Energy Pathway category. The certification acknowledged the plant improved its energy performance by nearly 42 percent between 2002-03 and 2012-13.

Employment at Mack has also changed over time. A 700-strong workforce produced some of the first trucks at the Lower Macungie plant, which pumped out Mack CF model fire apparatus, Mack F model cabover highway trucks and off-highway models like the Mack M series mining trucks and the Mack Pack articulated bottom dump.

Now, Mack has 1,866 employees locally. That's up from 812 in the Lehigh Valley in December 2009.

The Lower Macungie plant has been commemorating its 40th anniversary throughout this year. Employee celebrations took place earlier this summer and banners and branding have been displayed in the facility.

In conjunction with the anniversary, Mack also announced it would be changing the name of the facility from Macungie Cab & Vehicle Assembly to Mack Lehigh Valley Operations.

"This new name identifies our heritage, but also more accurately captures our operational footprint and the contributions of our employees who live throughout the region," Watson said in a statement Thursday. "Although we are celebrating four decades of success at our plant, we have been revitalizing the facility with innovative systems and tools that already give our operation a very modern feel, and we are not yet complete with our updates."

The new facility name will begin to appear on signage and other material in the coming weeks, Mack said.

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Mack AC trucks stored along Lawrence Street (now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) in Allentown in 1918, awaiting shipment to Europe. This is the truck that gave the company its name.

Mack Trucks, then known as the International Motor Co., was another local company that had its identity shaped by the war. The company had come to Allentown in 1905 from New York and was headed by the Mack brothers, Jack, William, and Augustus or ‘Gus,’ and was already well known as a maker of buses and trucks.

By 1914 it had merged with a number of other truck companies to become the International Motor Co. Its major contribution to the war effort was the sturdy, rugged Mack AC truck. In 1917 about 150 of these trucks, with their distinctive front that resembles a face, were sold to the British.

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Mack World Headquarters under construction at 2100 Mack Boulevard in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1969, under Zenon C.R. Hansen's leadership "The Truck Capital of the World."

Construction began in 1967, and it was completed in late 1969. Mack World Headquarters was officially opened in April 28, 1970.

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