JCB recently broke round a 200,000 square foot service and support center for the company’s North American operations in Pooler, Ga.

The JCB Customer Support Center will resemble a smaller version of the headquarters for JCB, with its familiar green façade. The headquarters building serves as the North American operations headquarters. The customer support center will be located on Bamford Boulevard opposite the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum.

“This is a very significant day for JCB and also for Coastal Georgia,” says John Patterson, managing director and CEO of JCB. “The JCB Customer Support Center will serve as a global distribution center for North America, South America and the Pacific Rim. But, at the same time, it will stand as visible proof of our commitment to customer support, particularly for our North American customers.”

JCB is the world’s largest privately owned manufacturer of construction equipment. It maintains 17 manufacturing locations on four continents and employs 8,000 people, 500 of them at the Pooler location.

The JCB Customer Support Center will occupy 500 feet of frontage along Bamford Blvd. It will be set back about 200 feet from the street and will be constructed of the same material as the distinctive JCB headquarters building that faces Interstate 95.

While the World Parts Center at JCB’s world headquarters in the United Kingdom is the main distribution center for JCB parts, the JCB Customer Support Center will serve as the distribution point for parts sourced in America.

“Completion of the JCB Customer Support Center will enable us to improve the level of service we offer to our North American dealer network and also position us for significant market growth when the economic climate improves,” said Graeme Macdonald, president of JCB. “Locating the support center here in America makes both logistical and economic sense.”

Just as it did with its headquarters and manufacturing facility, JCB retained the engineering and architectural firm of Hussey, Gay, Bell and DeYoung of Savannah to prepare the engineering drawings for the support center. The company plans to select the project’s general contractor and subcontractors before the end of the year.

Construction of the JCB Customer Support Center should be complete by the fourth quarter of next year. When the new building opens, it will free up about 80,000 square feet of space in the manufacturing facility that will be used to increase the plant’s manufacturing capacity.

JCB operates four manufacturing lines at the Georgia location. It produces backhoe loaders, telescopic handlers, skid steer loaders and the new High-Mobility Engineer Excavator for the U.S. Army.

JCB has 17 manufacturing facilities on four continents: 10 in the U.K., three in India and others in the U.S., China, Germany and Brazil. The company employs more than 8,000 people worldwide.

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