Greenworks opens North American Commercial Center of Excellence for Manufacturing and Engineering in Morristown, Tennessee

Greenworks Commercial has expanded its global footprint by opening the doors to its 180,000-square-foot Commercial Center of Excellence for Manufacturing and Engineering in Morristown, Tennessee, its first in North America.

The facility’s initial $25 million investment will focus on the manufacture of commercial and residential lithium-ion battery ride-on mowers. Greenworks reports that the new facility will bring more than 150 sustainable, high-tech careers to East Tennessee by the end of 2023 with up to 400 more career opportunities by 2025. The initial phase provides an annual production capacity of 30,000 ride-on mowers, gradually increasing to 80,000 by 2025.

The state-of-the-art facility currently houses:

• Two leading-edge automated guided vehicles (AGV) based assembly lines;
• A fully robotic vehicle chassis welding center with five fully robotic welding stations;
• High-precision tube and sheet metal laser cutting, stamping and CNC tube-bending equipment;
• A shot-blasting metal preparation center and powder-coating line;
• A state-of-the-art final inspection station including a light tunnel for visual inspection; and
• An exterior bumper and track test facility.

In addition, planned expansions for late 2023 and early 2024, include:

• Installation of an e-coating workshop and an injection molding center;
• Automatic assembly lines for large commercial-grade battery modules for ride-on mowers and battery packs for commercial handheld and walk-behind product lines;
• Manufacturing of commercial walk-behind mowers; and
• A parts and service warehouse.

The Morristown facility is also home to the North American Center for Advanced Vehicle Engineering within the Greenworks corporate group, with more than a dozen mechanical, electrical, and testing engineers calling Morristown home by the end of 2023. The U.S. engineering team collaborates with Greenworks’ main R&D campus in Changzhou, China, and its Autonomous and Robotics R&D Center in Jönköping, Sweden.

“It is always a pleasure to welcome an expanding new industry to our community, and Greenworks is no exception,” says R. Jack Fishman, chair of the Morristown Industrial Development Board. “We are fortunate to have a manufacturer replace a major company that provided jobs for our citizens for the last 50-plus years in the East Tennessee Valley Industrial District. Greenworks technology not only brings another major diversification of industrial skills but also a production of products that will help our city and improve climate changes. The jobs they bring to the Lakeway Area are significant, and the dollars they will also bring to our tax base is important in continuing to make Morristown and Hamblen County a great place to live and make a living.”

Greenworks Commercial reports that, by late 2023, it will begin manufacturing its fully autonomous, self-driving commercial ride-on mower – the OptimusAI – in Morristown. The innovative ride-on mower, based on the company’s OptimusZ platform design, features GPS-RTK navigation and vision-based live-object avoidance technology, allowing both self-driving and manned-driving modes. In its self-driving mode, the system operates with an accuracy of one inch.