Defense contractor and technology giant Leidos plans to invest $31.7 million to establish a security systems manufacturing facility in Ladson, South Carolina, the Fortune 500 company announced on Thursday.
The facility will span 150,000 square feet and create up to 170 jobs, according to the news release. Operations are expected to come online in the first half of next year.
The new plant’s location offers Leidos easy transportation availability, with multiple access points to Interstate 26 and near the Port of Charleston terminals, according to the Ladson Industrial Park website.
“The Charleston region represented the best opportunity for Leidos with a good balance on available facilities, workforce talent, proximity to shipping/transportation, municipal support, and overall cost of business,” Leidos’ Senior Vice President and Operations Manager Brad Buswell told Manufacturing Dive in an email.
The new facility will produce all of the company’s aviation products, which support airports and other checkpoint security systems worldwide, including the ClearScan, MV:3D and Pro:Vision, Buswell said.
The products screen check baggage, cargo and passengers and are part of Leidos’ security enterprise solutions operation portfolio, which supplies automated and integrated solutions for aviation, shipping ports and critical infrastructure sectors, according to the South Carolina Department of Commerce.
The facility will be Leidos’s third security systems manufacturing location in the U.S. The expansion comes as air travel returns to pre-pandemic levels while airports worldwide continue to struggle to recruit and retain staff to match those levels, Buswell said.
“Airports want to provide a positive travel experience for passengers and must also ensure the highest levels of threat detection,” Buswell said. “The best way to do so, and help mitigate staffing issues, is to leverage the latest screening technologies to improve detection and move passengers quickly through the screening checkpoints.”
The company has also been awarded contracts to deploy or upgrade security points in the aviation sector, including for the Transportation Security Administration, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the Dominican Republic’s Punta Cana International Airport and Germany’s Frankfurt Airport.
The opening of the South Carolina factory also comes as Leidos is aiming to gain more control of its supply chain in a bid to reduce costs. The company said it planned to bring some of its contract manufacturing for lower-level parts and some final equipment assembly, CEO Roger Krone told investors in February.
“That’s been part of our strategy, and we are having the conversations about a manufacturing Center of Excellence which I think really is a great part of the evolution of the company,” Krone said. “So we can look at, if you will, larger manufacturing like the provision system … and be very confident that we can build that well in-house.”
