John Deere Expands Des Moines Works Production

Des Moines Register:

With $9.8 million in newly-approved tax incentives from the state in hand, Deere & Company confirmed plans to expand the manufacturing capacity at the John Deere Des Moines Works, where about 500 new jobs have been added in the last year to bring the workforce there to about 1,900.
The Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) approved the tax incentives Friday. Deere said that 400 jobs would be retained as a result of the $85 million in capital improvements, including supplier tooling, to add a new 300,000-square-foot building for product assembly.
Deere will add production capacity for self-propelled sprayers – a product already manufactured at the factory. Construction of the new building is set to begin in the spring of 2012 and Deere expects that manufacturing of products could begin by spring of 2013.
The Ankeny works makes products primarily for cotton production.

Back in 2010, I toured that facility and the Hagie Sprayer production facility in Clarion.  The John Deere facility was a World War II ammunition facility, so there were a number of huge buildings which were well-separated.  Both of the tours featured an amazing number of people welding.  I'd never seen so many Lincoln Electric welders in a couple of days.  I was surprised they didn't have robotic welders at the plants.