CAMI Turns 25

Thursday, 29 May 2014 16:17

CAMI Assembly Plant was busy celebrating 25 years with an open house for team members, family and friends and retirees on Wednesday.

INGERSOLL -- CAMI Assembly Plant in Ingersoll has celebrated 25 years with an open house tour of its 1.7-million square feet of floor space.

The public was invited to sign up to tour the facility this week, with an opportunity to see it's stamping, weld, paint and assembly areas.

Plant Manager Les Bogar says aside from today's open house, long time and recent retirees were welcomed back for a private tour last week.

"They've asked and asked to get the opportunity to come in, so we made that happen for them and we did that prior to today's event. We got a lot of positive feedback on how things have changed and how things maybe in some departments are still the same. But it was good for them to come in and see some old friends and people they worked with for many, many years."

Opportunities to tour the CAMI plant don't come often. Bogar says the last time a general public tour of the facility was organized was five years ago.

"The reason it's open for today is of course for the 25 years, and we wanted to celebrate with the employees, their family their friends and our neighbours to showcase what they do every day in this facility and how they contribute."

In addition to the foot tour of the plant, some historical artifacts were also on display for guests to browse through.

Bogar says CAMI's ability to adapt has kept the line moving for a quarter century of vehicle manufacturing in Oxford County.

"We've kept our core, which was really the 'Suzuki Values' in the facility, even though today we're General Motors CAMI Assembly -- a lot of the manufacturing technologies have changed, it's part of the business as you evolve, and this facility has changed every year."

Now a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors of Canada, the plant started vehicle production back in April of 1989 as a G-M joint venture with Suzuki. It began production on the Suzuki Sidekick and Geo Tracker and later that same year the Geo Metro.

While different models have been manufactured over the years, the plant currently builds the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain.

Today, CAMI Automotive employs roughly 2,800 full time employees.