Construction continues on Plastic Omnium Auto Exterior’s new Chattanooga facility on Friday. Omnium has won a contract to build bumpers for Volkswagen’s SUV.A key supplier to Volkswagen’s Chattanooga assembly plant that’s building a $70 million factory at Enterprise South industrial park has captured work to build bumpers for the automaker’s new sport utility vehicle.
“We have won business for the SUV,” Marc Cornet, chief executive of the Americas for Plastic Omnium Auto Exteriors, said Friday as the company officially broke ground on a 27-acre site near the VW factory.
Winning the SUV work, along with other business, will help smooth the way for Plastic Omnium to employ about 300 people at the plant in some three years, he said.
The French supplier, which already provides parts for the Chattanooga-made Passat sedan, has begun initial hiring for 184 employees expected to be on staff by mid-2015 when the new plant is to start operating off Hickory Valley Road. Most of the hiring will begin next year.
“We’ve started putting a strong team in place,” Cornet said.