DELTA TWP. - By the first quarter of next year, General Motors will have a plant that can't be touched when it comes to bending and shaping automotive sheet metal.

The G.M. Lansing Regional Stamping Facility is a 708,000 square-foot plant under construction, which will provide most of the major body sheet metal to the new, nearby Grand River Assembly Plant. About 50 percent of the stamping plant's capacity will be shipped to other North American assembly operations.

GM Project Leader Dale Griffith and Project Manager Tom Arnold said there are about 300 construction workers on the project - about half are constructing the building and the other half are installing the presses. The Washington Group is acting as construction manager on the project.

"I can't give enough praise to the Lansing area building trades," said Griffith. "They've been nothing but supportive on this project, and the tradespeople have been very good."

Griffith also oversaw construction of the newest G.M. stamping plant, which was built in Atlanta in 1997. "We learned a lot after we built the plant in Georgia," Griffith said.

G.M. is spending $230 million on the Lansing Regional Stamping Plant, which will be its first with automatic transfer presses. Two of the facility's four lines are "Double A" presses, which are the largest in the world. Griffith said each press can quickly stamp a flat section of steel in five stages under 6,500 tons of pressure, possibly forming a vehicle's roof, sidewall, trunk or hood in just about any shape that G.M. designers can dream up.

For example, this plant will be used to form the sidewall of the newly redesigned Cadillac CTS in one continuous section - G.M.'s stamping operations currently do not have that capability. The CTS is being built at the Grand River plant.

Slightly more than half of the plant's footprint will be devoted to storage of the finished product. As they're needed, the fenders will be shipped via truck to G.M. manufacturing facilities. The stamping plant will employ 200-250 workers.

"In a sense, our job so far has been simple," Griffith said. "We're basically providing a flat area for the presses, a roof to keep the rain out, and heat and lights for workers. The real core of this plant is the stamping process."

Construction work began on the stamping plant in July 2000, but when the economy hit the skids, G.M. halted work for six months. "The economy slowed for a while, but we're back on track," said Washington Group Project Director Lou Troendle. "Overall, we've worked almost 600,000 man-hours without lost time, and that's a pretty good record. The people on this project have worked hard on making this a safe job, and we're proud of that."

The stamping plant is part of an anticipated $1 billion investment in new construction on G.M.'s 1,100-acre Delta Township site. G.M. has also announced its intention to build its second totally new vehicle assembly operation in the U.S. since the Saturn plant in Tennessee was completed in 1986. The next plant constructed was the Lansing Grand River plant, which was completed last year.

Jerry Elson, vice president of GM's North America Car Group Operations, said the new manufacturing plant will be approximately 2.2 million square-feet, and include a body shop, paint shop, and general assembly building. 

AN OPERATOR LOWERS a drive gear into place at the end of one of the Double A presses at the GM Lansing Regional Stamping Facility.

BENDING HYDRAULIC tubing at the G.M. Lansing Regional Stamping Facility are Tracey Esch and Mark Swayne of Plumbers & Pipe Fitters 333 and Goyette Mechanical.