Development News

General Dynamics breaks ground in Sterling Heights

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Related Tags

Work has begun on a new home for General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights.

The defense industry firm is building a 22,000-square-foot tech center that will focus on developing military ground vehicles. The Mounted Maneuver Collaboration Center will focus on concept generation, system design and demonstration, and finding efficiencies in the development of its products.

The $8.2 million project comes complete with a fully equipped laboratory that will be used in the product development cycle for early concept analysis or testing of subsystems and prototypes of future military vehicles. It will also support open source collaboration with third parties, such as the U.S. military and suppliers in the automotive and defense industries. It is expected to have a staff of 25-50 people initially.

"As it gets going and we start collaborating on more projects for ground vehicles it is expected to grow," says Robin Porter, a spokeswoman for General Dynamics Land Systems.

Work is expected to wrap up next summer.

The new center is located at 38500 Mound Road, next to General Dynamics' combat vehicle engineering center and prototype shop which employs about 3,000-4,000 people. That center recently hired about 75 new engineers this fall.

The center is part of a rapidly growing defense industry based in Macomb County that includes the Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, the Marine Corps Advanced Amphibious Assault and Light Armored Vehicle Programs, the Macomb County Defense and Homeland Security Technology Advancement SmartZone, and the Defense Office of Automation Alley.

Source: Robin Porter, spokeswoman for General Dynamics Land Systems
Writer: Jon Zemke