FP Waterjet — Precision Waterjet Cutting from Landrum, SC
On June 30, 2026, BMW Group closed the books on a $1.7 billion investment in South Carolina, marking the completion of its Plant Spartanburg expansion and the construction of Plant Woodruff. At the “Home of X” event, the company confirmed that the iX5 will be the first fully electric BMW assembled in the United States, with assembly beginning at Plant Spartanburg before the end of 2026. According to the BMW Group announcement, Spartanburg will become the first plant in BMW’s global network capable of assembling a single vehicle across five drivetrain technologies on one line — combustion, diesel, plug-in hybrid, battery electric, and eventually hydrogen fuel cell.
That is the headline. The more revealing story is buried in the announcements that came before it.
The Capital-to-Headcount Ratio Has Shifted
Look at what the state announced in Spartanburg County alone during 2025 and a pattern emerges.
In July, pipe fabricator FabLogix expanded into a 150,000-square-foot facility in Duncan. A $9.8 million investment creating 150 jobs — roughly $65,000 in capital per position.
In September, Woodward, Inc. selected the county for a 300,000-square-foot precision manufacturing facility in Greer’s Smith Farms Industrial Park, building servo-hydraulic actuation systems for aircraft flight control. Nearly $200 million, approximately 275 jobs — about $727,000 per position.
Days later, ZF Chassis Systems Duncan announced a $55.4 million expansion into a 477,360-square-foot facility for precision axle assemblies. It will create 30 jobs. That is roughly $1.8 million in capital per position, or about 28 times FabLogix’s ratio.
Same county. Same twelve months. What separates them is not scale but the nature of the work. The Upstate is absorbing capital-intensive, automation-heavy, tolerance-driven production. Machines are arriving faster than machinists.
What Five Drivetrains on One Line Does to a Supply Base
Mixed-drivetrain assembly is the defining operational fact of the region’s next decade, and it pushes complexity outward.
A line building five powertrain variants of the same vehicle needs more part numbers at lower volumes per number. Brackets, heat shields, seals, and insulation vary by drivetrain. Prototype and first-article cycles compress because launch windows overlap. The supplier that once quoted a single high-volume part now quotes six variants — and the tooling amortization that made the old model work stops penciling out.
That shift is examined in detail in BMW’s First U.S.-Built EV Enters Production This Year — What It Means for Upstate Suppliers, which looks at how Tier 1 and Tier 2 shops in Greenville and Spartanburg are restructuring quoting around variant proliferation.
The Cost Side Is Moving Too
Material economics are compounding the pressure. Section 232 duties on steel, aluminum, and copper were restructured in 2026 to apply to the full customs value of covered articles rather than only the embedded metal content — a change that raises the real cost of every square inch of stock a shop buys and every part it scraps. That math is broken down in 50% Metal Tariffs Are Rewriting the Math on Scrap for Carolina Manufacturers.
The scale of what is at stake regionally is not small. The South Carolina Department of Commerce reports the state’s automotive industry now carries an economic impact of more than $27 billion, supported by more than 500 automotive companies and a workforce exceeding 75,000. BMW alone assembled 412,799 X models at Plant Spartanburg in 2025 — the seventh year the plant exceeded 400,000 units — with roughly half of that output exported to nearly 120 countries.
The Gap Nobody Announces
Economic development press releases count jobs and square feet. They do not count the regional capacity to cut a first-article gasket in three days, or to hold tolerance on a 40-piece bracket run without tooling cost.
That capacity is what the Upstate’s growth is quietly consuming. When an OEM or Tier 1 needs a prototype seal, a short-run mounting plate, or a mixed-material assembly cut without a heat-affected zone, the answer is rarely a new production line. It is a local shop that can turn the work in days.
FP Waterjet operates from Landrum, cutting metal, foam, and plastic on a single abrasive waterjet — no tool changes between materials, no thermal distortion, no tooling cost between a prototype and a production batch. For manufacturers in Greenville, Spartanburg, and Anderson, that is often the difference between hitting a launch date and explaining why it slipped.
FP Waterjet Services
FP Waterjet provides precision abrasive waterjet cutting to manufacturers across Upstate South Carolina from our Landrum facility. Every job begins with a drawing review and ends with inspection before parts leave the floor.
- Waterjet Cutting Services — Precision cutting across metal, foam, and plastic with no heat-affected zone
- Automotive Waterjet Cutting — Gaskets, seals, brackets, and prototype parts for automotive manufacturers and suppliers
Have a drawing you need quoted? Contact FP Waterjet to talk through material, tolerance, and turnaround.
Works Cited
“BMW Group Completes $1.7 Billion U.S. Investment and Premieres New BMW X5 at ‘Home of X’ Event in Spartanburg, SC.” BMW Group PressClub, BMW Group, 30 June 2026, www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0458864EN/. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
“Automotive Manufacturing & Industry Growth in South Carolina.” South Carolina Department of Commerce, www.sccommerce.com/industries/automotive-industry. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
“Woodward, Inc. Selects Spartanburg County to Establish a New Manufacturing Site in South Carolina.” South Carolina Department of Commerce, 16 Sept. 2025, www.sccommerce.com/news/woodward-inc-selects-spartanburg-county-establish-new-manufacturing-site-south-carolina. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
“ZF Chassis Systems Duncan Expands Spartanburg County Operations.” South Carolina Department of Commerce, 23 Sept. 2025, www.sccommerce.com/news/zf-chassis-systems-duncan-expands-spartanburg-county-operations. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
“FabLogix Expands Spartanburg County Operations.” Office of the Governor Henry McMaster, State of South Carolina, 29 July 2025, www.governor.sc.gov/news/2025-07/fablogix-expands-spartanburg-county-operations. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Related Articles
- BMW’s First U.S.-Built EV Enters Production This Year — What It Means for Upstate Suppliers
- 50% Metal Tariffs Are Rewriting the Math on Scrap for Carolina Manufacturers
About the Author
Chris Urban is the Founder of Forged Path Automation. His 26+ year manufacturing career spans from an international manufacturing specialist trained in Zurich, Switzerland, to corporate President and business owner. Before launching Forged Path Automation (FPA), Chris scaled an industrial gas turbine business unit from its infancy to $50M in value, directed the zero-downtime relocation of 100+ industrial machines to a 150,000 sq. ft. Center of Excellence, and led US operations for a $2.3B global firm. Today, Chris leverages his deep technical roots and an MBA to engineer turnkey robotic finishing cells that deliver total production stability and clear ROI for high-mix manufacturers. Chris holds an advanced background in both the technical and financial sides of manufacturing, combining studies in Applied Science with a Master of Business Administration.
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn to talk shop or discuss your floor’s ROI.
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