ABB Installation Products completes $40M ‘state-of-the-art’ expansion on city’s West Side

In a world full of devices and plugins, demand for electricity is on the rise.

ABB Installation Products is making sure the grid can keep up through a recently completed $40 million expansion to its existing manufacturing facility on Albuquerque’s West Side.

ABB and government officials gathered at 6625 Bluewater NW for a grand opening Thursday morning to celebrate the completion of the 90,000-square-foot expansion, which was announced and broke ground in 2023. The expansion has doubled the site’s production capacity and will create 150 new jobs.

Khalid Mandri, president of the ABB Installation Products division, told the Journal he was “extremely proud” of the expansion.

“That’s state-of-the-art technology and state-of-the-art facility. ... It goes with our strategy of local for local, supporting the U.S. grid, moving forward, supporting our customers and our big utilities,” Mandri said. “We’re going to keep investing here.”

ABB Installation Products is a division of ABB Group, a global electrification and robotics company with manufacturing operations on every continent and 110,000 employees worldwide. The company invested an initial $40 million into the expansion, referred to as the South Building, and then an additional $15 million that went toward both the South Building and improvements to the existing North Building, company officials said in a news release.

The North Building, also 90,000 square feet, opened in 1973 on a 40-acre campus originally owned by Thomas & Betts, an electrical products manufacturing company acquired by ABB in 2012.

The 180,000-square-foot facility can now manufacture double the products, such as the company’s proprietary Elastimold cable accessories and Fisher Pierce circuit solutions.

ABB’s products, often invisible to the everyday consumer, are made to manage electrical power and protect the electrical systems that power businesses, homes, cities and transportation. They are the connectors or switch gears hidden inside green electrical boxes located near homes and businesses.

Many of ABB’s products also go beneath consumers’ feet. The company plays a role in supporting undergrounding, which is the process of moving power lines underground to improve safety and the resilience of utility systems against weather-related events.

“Anytime you don’t see a lot of powerlines around, that’s a good sign that we’re probably there,” said Jack Bellissimo, ABB’s senior vice president of product management.

The community could potentially see the manufacturing action up close through the South Building’s new Pioneering Innovation Center, an exhibit-like space showcasing product replicas and signage. One of the center’s walls has large glass windows for viewing production and robotics.

“We’ve proven that we can do it with both,” said David Jaramillo, the site’s general manager. He added that the site has not let anyone go as a result of integrating the robotics in 2019.

Jaramillo said machinery will start moving into the space now through September.

The company has already hired 100 people for the 150 new positions, bringing the Albuquerque campus’ total employment to more than 565, Bellissimo said. The facility expects to hire the remaining 50 in the coming months.

“Everybody out there is pretty excited (about the expansion),” Jaramillo said.

Look inside ABB Installation Products Albuquerque manufacturing facility