11/13/2012 12h45

Cooper Power Systems inaugurates high-tech plant in Porto Feliz

Investe São Paulo advised the company, which invested R$ 60 million in the new unit, creating 120 direct jobs in the region

With the inauguration of the Cooper Power Systems plant last Monday, November 12, in Porto Feliz – located 110 km away from the state capital – the State of São Paulo is now home to a plant capable of producing high-tech equipment that will contribute to the optimization, expansion and maintenance of the electrical infrastructure of energy distribution in Brazil and abroad. The new plant, which already employs 120 workers, marks the beginning of the local production of power capacitors and voltage regulators, in addition to expanding the production of reclosers.

“Undoubtedly, it is the most modern plant of these types of equipment in Brazil and, potentially, in the world. We gathered all learning in terms of process improvement and quality of our plants in the United States and Asia, and the result is the literal achievement of the state of the art in the production of capacitors and reactive compensation systems, voltage regulators and reclosers,” says the Vice President of Cooper Power Systems in Latin America, Flavio Marqueti.

Located at km 125 of Marechal Cândido Rondon highway, the new plant covers an area of 92,000 square meters and has 10 thousand square meters of manufacturing area that add up to the 2,500 square meters intended for the company’s offices.

“Investe São Paulo supported the company in locating areas for the settlement in the state, and provided environmental, tax and infrastructure advice,” says the agency’s president, Luciano Almeida. According to him, before choosing the city, the American company considered three other Brazilian states and chose Porto Feliz because it has a range of facilities, from logistics to the production flow and the availability of skilled labor.

Another decisive aspect was the support of the local municipality. “Porto Feliz prepared for the current moment, where large investments are coming to the city due to its good conditions, both geographical and infrastructure conditions. With the creation of a secretariat focused on the economic development, we included ‘Terra das Monções’ in the route of the large developments,” says the mayor of the municipality, Cláudio Maffei.

The municipal secretary of Social and Sustainable Development, João Esquerdo Junior, explains that apart from the infrastructure and the laws for tax and financial incentives offered by city, it also provides skilled labor in accordance with the needs of the enterprise that will be settled in the city, as happened to Cooper. “The Department of Social and Sustainable Development and Investe SP are perfectly in tune, ready to meet investors in Porto Feliz with skilled employees who will provide information with agility and respond all the demands from the companies,” says Junior.

With the new plant, Cooper – which already has operations in Campinas, Itu and Sorocaba – is expanding its line of reclosers, existing in Brazil for 17 years, by locally starting the production of capacitors and reactive compensation systems and voltage regulators. “In addition to these products, the expansion will serve as a development and sales basis for the smart grid business and innovative technologies, such as the smart and remote metering of energy, demand control, smart sensors, automation of substations and automatic network reconfiguration systems, among others. The unit will also serve as a platform for other divisions of Cooper Industries such as Cooper Lighting, Cooper B-Line, Cooper Wiring Devices and Cooper Safety,” concludes Marqueti.