Rolls-Royce bets big on Indiana for defense production
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Rolls-Royce will this week mark the completion of a $1 billion investment in Indiana, where the company has expanded and renovated its manufacturing, assembly and test facilities.
The big picture: The overhaul competitively positions Rolls-Royce amid wartime-production messaging from the Pentagon and a growing portfolio of projects, including propulsion for the Army's MV-75, the Air Force's B-52J and the Navy's MQ-25A.
- "If you go back to 2014, we knew that we were at an inflection point. We had aging facilities, some dating back to World War II," Adam Riddle, president of Rolls-Royce Defense, told Axios.
- "We didn't have the productivity or the efficiency that we needed, and we knew we had to make a decision," he said. "Are we going to manage a slow decline, or are we going to compete for the future?"
Driving the news: Hundreds of people are expected to attend a ribbon-cutting Thursday. Expected speakers include Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Lawrence Muennich and Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.
Follow the money: The $1 billion investment can be divided into two batches:
- $600 million spent modernizing advanced manufacturing, which wrapped in 2021;
- And $400 million spent on new engine-testing infrastructure.
Context: The company has pumped out 14,000-plus engines at its Indianapolis campus since 2001. About half can be traced back to the AE line, seen in the Lockheed Martin C-130J and the Bell-Boeing V-22, among others.
The bottom line: "We have capacity — right now — to handle increased growth in our core products, increased growth in the programs that we have in development and the programs we think we're going to win," Riddle said.
- "We can do the tests faster. We're doing it more efficiently."
