Mack Trucks

MANUFACTURING FRONT Making trucks in Roanoke County

By Gene Marrano

By this Fall, the town of Dublin in the New River Valley won’t be the only venue in the region where new trucks are being manufactured.

Announced with great fanfare during a “groundbreaking” ceremony in late January, with Governor Ralph Northam and other state officials in tow, the Roanoke Valley Operations plant at Roanoke County’s Valley Tech Park is slated to come on line next month after a delay from July due to COVID-19. The Mack MD Series of medium-duty trucks is a new line for the company and a $13 million dollar investment to get the production line up and running inside an already existing building was announced in January.

Antonio Servidoni, the Vice President of Medium Duty operations, came over from the Volvo Trucks North America manufacturing facility in Dublin to oversee Roanoke Valley Operations (RVO). The parent company, Swedenbased Volvo, owns both product lines. Considering delays caused by the pandemic “at this point we’re doing extremely well,” he said in late June about the new targeted opening date for production at Valley Tech Park. “Our team continues to drive to [launch] production.” September 1 is the new targeted opening date for full-blown production. New trucks are already rolling off the production line.

The goal when assembling the production line for the brand-new medium duty truck was to “engineer simplicity. There’s a mix of very sophisticated [technology] like very autonomous things running and validation equipment, to secure foolproof quality” says Servidoni. On the other hand, where simplicity makes more sense in the production line that will happen as well, with cost savings a factor. “I think its going to be a very nice facility – very unique I would say.”

Mack Trucks said it would hire around 250 employees (a process still underway in early July) who will then be trained for the assembly process at the RVO. Servidoni says a “completely different business model,” that includes training already underway and on the job preparation later will ensure “that everyone is fully ready to do the work.” So far Mack Trucks has been able to hire what he called a “promising,” caliber of worker.

Once the Roanoke County plant is up and running safety guidelines already in place for the coronavirus at other Mack/ Volvo facilities will be evident here as well he adds. Adherence to federal/CDC and state Covid-19 safety precautions that will be in place September 1 will rule the day says Servidoni: “we have a complete [safety] design and that will be fully addressed.”

Early on during the worldwide pandemic there were a few supply chain issues but parts/truck component producers gradually adjusted to the new normal and right now “everything looks pretty solid, unless we have a surprise [pop up].” The RVO plant also built a few prototypes early on adds Servidoni, to help work out any bugs in the production line layout.

Early reaction to the new MD Series medium duty trucks has been positive and at a launch event in Phoenix “everyone was very excited. I think

the [Mack] dealerships are very excited about the new model coming in. The pandemic put a little bit of a hurdle [in the way] but so far we are very happy with what’s going on right now. We want to show [the public] what we have been doing here.” The medium-duty series truck (MD6) does not require a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) for non-hazardous loads. There’s an MD6 (class 6 model) and a heavier MD7 model.

As for partnerships with Roanoke County, other local agencies and the Commonwealth of Virginia [which chipped in with $700,000 from the Opportunity Fund] that helped land the manufacturing plant here Servidoni says that has been “extremely good. Everything that we needed [often started] with a phone call - and we got the full support for our needs here. Excellent so far.” 280,000 square feet in the

new facility are dedicated to producing the MD Series. For competitive reasons Mack Trucks would not reveal how many they plan to roll off the assembly line in Roanoke County. The refrigerated, flatbed, dump and tank truck markets are among those being targeted. “We’re taking orders for the new truck beginning today,” said Mack Trucks president Martin Weissburg back in January. maybe some relief - when the first production truck rolls off the line in September: “we’re very excited with what’s going on right now,” says Servidoni. “We thought we would be hit much harder than we were during the pandemic. But we were able to stay in good shape to get things started in September. The whole team is going hard. I think people will enjoy working there. It’s a very nice facility. It feels like home.”