Since the inception of the Gray Court facility in Laurens County in 2012, ZF and the State of South Carolina have been a winning combination that has benefitted South Carolina citizens, state and local governments, the ZF Group, and all of our employees at our Gray Court, Charleston and Duncan.
The manufacturing industry has become a vital part of the state of South Carolina, fostering growth, increasing wages and expanding the state’s global economic footprint and contributing approximately 15% of the state’s Gross Domestic Product. The auto and commercial vehicle industries have played a major role in this expansion with the advent of BMW establishing production in the state, and the resulting support of auto suppliers like ZF working hand-in-hand to manufacture high quality vehicles.
Today, manufacturing is undergoing another renaissance by leveraging cutting-edge technologies like automation, robotics, and AI, cloud computing and digital twins to drive improved efficiency, quality, safety and sustainability of the products we produce every day.
To successfully grow manufacturing in S.C. companies must have a strategy to innovate and invest:
- Investing in its people – education, training, apprenticeships and internships.
- Investing in innovation – robotics, AI.
- Investing in processes – automation, data.
ZF is taking these principles to heart at its South Carolina facilities and throughout the globe having developed the “Digital Manufacturing Platform” (DMP). Instead of installing software separately at each plant and operating it on local servers, the DMP relies on a central cloud solution.
With more than 3,000 employees and many more at our sub-suppliers across the state, the company is proud to be contributing to the economy and working in tandem with local and county governments, commerce chambers and school systems through apprenticeship and cooperative education programs. From the Upstate region to oceanside Charleston, ZF is gratified to be a partner in South Carolina’s surging economy and looks forward to continued growth.
