Yamaha Prop Facility Reaches Full Production

The new Yamaha Marine Precision Propeller (YPPI) facility in Greenfield, Ind. reached full production capacity this July. The advanced casting facility and foundry uses state-of-the-art robotics to significantly reduce lead times and increase production by more than 67 percent, allowing YPPI to deliver more than 100,000 propellers to customers annually.

The Greenfield YPPI facility now houses the entire propeller casting operation while the YPPI location in Ritter, Ind. will serve as the manufacturer’s post casting and finishing facility. YPPI is one of only two marine propeller foundries in the U.S. and one of the largest stainless-steel investment casting foundries in the world.

To achieve greater levels of efficiency and increased production, the YPPI team brought in several new equipment advancements including a first-of-its-kind pouring system in addition to higher levels of space-efficient automation, i.e. robotic processing. The robotics created the need for new technical roles to support the equipment and technology.

YPPI employees have the advantage of on-the-job foundry training and expert skill development that is directly transferrable to other manufacturing industries. The manufacturer also offers world-class benefits and competitive salaries that start well above minimum wage, giving employees comfortable lifestyle options within the cost-of-living factor in Greenfield.

Yamaha, which acquired Precision Propellers in 2008, broke ground on the multimillion-dollar, 55,000-square-foot facility in July 2019. Yamaha said it plans to further expand the campus.

“Yamaha built the Greenfield facility with additional capacity in mind — not only to meet today’s demand, but tomorrow’s as well,” Ak said. “As key customers of many vendors that supply U.S.-sourced products, we’ve been at the forefront of receiving the raw materials we needed to keep up the pace.”

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