Sterling Heights

BAE celebrates completion of Sterling campus' first phase

By Cortney Casey
C & G Staff Writer

STERLING HEIGHTS — From the assembly bays and copious labs down to the employee cubicles, BAE Systems’ new Sterling Heights Prototype Facility is taking high-tech to the next level.

The global defense company celebrated the grand opening of its state-of-the-art 50,000-square-foot building along Van Dyke, north of 14 Mile, late last month, less than a year after breaking ground. The center will serve as BAE’s main hub for producing, assembling and testing military ground combat vehicles.

The entire $58.4 million campus — which will encompass 198,000 square feet of facilities on 81 acres, housing around 600 employees —is expected to be complete by fall 2011. With the Prototype Facility done, work is beginning on a second phase, which entails constructing an adjacent four-story office building and upgrading the former TRW Automotive test track on the west side of the property.

Workers, a combination of transfers and new hires, are expected to begin moving into the Prototype Facility next month, said Seth Abbott, prototyping site manager for Sterling Heights and New York.

The most successful components of similar BAE facilities elsewhere were combined to form the Sterling Heights design, said Abbott, and “in many cases, we actually improved on what we had in our other sites.”

The rectangular, gray-blue building has a deceptively nondescript exterior, but the interior is chock-full of technologically advanced features.

In the assembly bays, cameras that can be remotely repositioned allow technicians in Sterling Heights, using wireless headsets, to confer with engineers in other states as they examine vehicle parts together.

Computer monitors at each bay put information at workers’ fingertips, as the company is trying to wean itself off paper, said Abbott. A digital whiteboard arms staffers with the ability to stream meetings and teleconference with colleagues and clients.

Reconfigurable troughs in the floor provide means for running power and communication lines from vehicles to soundproof, climate-controlled “engineering mezzanines” that overlook the assembly areas like press boxes. The space also is equipped with half-ton jib cranes and overhead cranes capable of hoisting 20 to 40 tons.

Colored outlines on the floor, mimicking the size and shape of specific pieces of equipment, aim to keep the workspaces tidy. “At the end of the day, everything (goes) back in its place,” said Abbott.

A plethora of labs — electrical prototype, electrical engineering, software, systems integration, etc. —are scattered throughout the building. Soon, the facility will contain a giant, pre-fabricated paint booth and a steam-cleaning room for sullied vehicles.

Upstairs, in an office area, low-walled cubicles are intended to encourage collaboration between managers and staffers, said Joe Hoffman, the site and facilities manager.

They sport magnetic whiteboard walls, desk surfaces that easily raise and lower to adapt to sitting or standing workers, and wheeled filing cabinets with cushioned tops for additional seating.

“It’s techie,” said Hoffman, “but it’s extremely functional.”

A giant banner in the fabrication and machining area depicting camouflage-clad American soldiers crouching besides a combat vehicle proclaims, “This is the customer.”

Visitors during tours offered Aug. 25 piled into a shuttle to take a peek at the 0.4-mile test track, which will undergo two rounds of improvements.

The first entails repaving and widening the track from 16 feet to 32 feet, which “will allow us to run multiple vehicles at once,” explained Scott McPherson, a BAE test driver.

The second involves adding obstacles like a steep parking pyramid, fording obstacles and trenches that will verify that BAE’s products meet government specifications for traversing inclines and ditches, and crossing water.

BAE hopes to make the entire campus the first project in Sterling Heights to become gold-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified through the U.S. Green Building Council.

Features incorporated into the Prototype Facility in pursuit of that goal include toilets and fixtures that result in reduced water consumption, bamboo and rubber flooring, and various linoleum, cork and wood products that “encourage environmentally responsible rainforest management.” Materials were reused and recycled whenever possible.

USGBC officials will determine whether BAE met its goal following the completion of the entire campus next fall, said Hoffman.

BAE tapped Sterling Heights as the site for the massive campus after governmental entities heaped on the incentives, including a state tax credit worth $22.1 million over 14 years, a $460,000 grant for worker training, and a city-approved 12-year, $4.6 million tax abatement.

Sterling Heights officials are delighted by the project, especially considering the city’s attempts to diversify beyond the automotive sector, specifically into defense and Homeland Security initiatives.

“We have a very strong commercial and manufacturing corridor, from the whole Mound, Van Dyke (area), from 14 (Mile) up to M-59,” said City Manager Mark Vanderpool. “It’s nice to see businesses expanding and reinvesting, from Chrysler to BAE to General Dynamics. … Sometimes that positive story gets overshadowed by all the negativity going on right under our noses in Sterling Heights.

“It’s gratifying to see a project like BAE actually rising out of the ground, and a project that’s going to employ now well over 500-600 employees — high-paying jobs,” he added. “We’re really glad to have them.”

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Cortney Casey at ccasey@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1046.