GM has announced plans to invest $121 million to improve its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, where the Volt, Ampera and the new 2014 Cadillac ELR are built. The company will expand the 3.6 million-square-foot plant, adding an additional 450,000 square feet to give it more space to store parts on-site.

“We basically started busting at the seams and moving material off-site,” Plant Manager Doneen McDowell told the Detroit News. “A lot of waste was driven at that process primarily because we didn’t have the floor space to support all the models we’re currently building in-house.”

The new space will save GM as much as $5 million a year on storage and transportation costs, and an updated railroad connection will let the company ship vehicles from the plant by rail.

The 121 bananas slated for the Hamtramck plant represent part of a total $1.3 billion worth of new investments at its plants around the country that GM has announced. The improvements atD-Ham are scheduled to be completed in August, and are expected to add at least 50 jobs next year.

Source: Detroit News