Gov. Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. (WEDC) on Friday announced that Yaskawa America Inc. will invest $180 million to expand its current facility in Franklin, located in the Milwaukee area, and consolidate its Illinois and Wisconsin facilities into one campus. The company will relocate its North American headquarters from Waukegan, Illinois, to Franklin. The new 800,000-square-foot campus will include a headquarters, training and lab building, manufacturing and packaging facilities, and robotics and semiconductor production operations.
This expansion marks Yaskawa Electric Corp.’s 110th anniversary globally and Yaskawa America Inc.’s 58th year of service in the United States. Yaskawa America Inc. manufactures industrial robots, motion control products, low- and medium-voltage AC drives and solar inverters for numerous industries, including semiconductors, solar, machine tools, automotive, HVAC, pumping, oil and gas and others.
With this expansion, the company will also begin manufacturing robots in Franklin that will be shipped directly to customers or integrated into production lines at their Ohio facility.
The Evers Administration, through WEDC, is supporting the project by authorizing up to $18 million in performance-based Enterprise Zone tax credits. The actual amount of tax credits received is contingent upon the number of jobs created and the amount of capital investment during that period.
