GE Aerospace has issued a new forecast of its 2025 capital-spending plans, outlining nearly $1 billion in programs for its U.S. manufacturing sites and supply chain. The amount is almost twice the CapEx total for 2024, according to the company.
GE also committed to hire about 5,000 new workers across 16 states during 2025, including manufacturing and engineering positions.
Included in the spending program is more than $100 million targeting GE’s supplier network, to ensure suppliers have invested in the advanced equipment and systems to produce parts, and to reducing defects and supply chain constraints.
Last year, following the separation of General Electric’s former health sciences and energy businesses, GE Aerospace initiated a $650-million capital investment program for its supplier network.
It also put forward a $1-billion program to update its MRO and component repair network.
"Investing in manufacturing and innovation is more critical than ever for the future of our industry and the communities where we operate," stated chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp, Jr. "We are committed to helping our customers modernize and expand their fleets while scaling technologies that will truly define the future of flight. Together, this will keep the United States at the forefront of aerospace leadership."
Some of these investments include $113 million for plant updates and new equipment at sites in greater Cincinnati, where GE Aerospace is headquartered, and where it develops, tests, and assembles the CFM LEAP commercial jet and several military aircraft engines.
A further $70 million is set for an expansion in Muskegon, Mich., to produce parts for the LEAP engine hot section of the engine.
LEAP engine and other commercial engine assembly operations in Durham, N.C. ($16 million), and Lafayette, Ind. ($5 million), are due for expansion, as is a LEAP engine components plant in West Jefferson, N.C. ($13 million.)
A total of $200 million is dedicated for new Black Hawk and Apache engine production programs in Lynn, Mass., and Madisonville, Ken.
More than $100 million has been pledged to scale production of engine components from new materials, including ceramic matrix composites (CMCs.) This will include new additive manufacturing (3D printing) capabilities at Auburn ($51 million) and Huntsville, Ala. ($22 million), Batesville, Miss. ($11 million), Asheville, N.C. ($20 million), and West Chester, Ohio ($14 million.)
