Photo taken on July 17, 2018 shows the assembly hall of China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) assembly facility in Chicago, the United States. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)
CHICAGO, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Marina Popovich joined China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) Sifang America in September 2017, and knows well how the company has managed to quickly win the market and the hearts of locals.
She has witnessed the whole construction process of the CRRC Sifang America's facility in the southern suburbs of Chicago, from the groundbreaking to equipment installation and further to completion in 2018 and start of production in 2019.
As human resources director and chief legal counsel for CRRC Sifang America, Popovich has been in charge of a lot of recruiting in the local community and the Chicago area.
"CRRC was definitely dedicated to the community, to the city and to making sure that we used labor here from Chicago," She said.
There are 78 employees at the facility right now as the production is in the prototype phase. "We have a couple of phases and the second phase when we get into the large production of the remaining cars, we will have many more recruiting sessions, and the number of employees that we will be hiring, it'll be in the hundreds," Popovich told Xinhua.
CRRC has already brought a number of jobs to the local community. Besides the construction work, there are also work on the floor, in the back office, in finance department, in HR department, and in procurement department. "It's bringing a lot of jobs to this area. And what's very exciting for CRRC is it's made this investment in Chicago and in this area and has brought the manufacturing industry back to Chicago, that has been gone for decades."
Before joining CRRC Sifang America, Popovich had worked in a number of different places, as a lawyer in procurement as well as at Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) at one point.
Photo taken on July 17, 2018 shows an 800-meter track, where all the assembled cars will be speed-tested, along the outer edge of the China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) factory area in Chicago, the United States. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)
CRRC Sifang America won a 1.3-billion-U.S.-dollar contract in 2016 to supply 846 railcars to the Chicago Transit Authority. These will replace nearly half of the agency's fleet, where the oldest cars have been hitting the tracks for more than 30 years.
By assembling the railcars in Chicago, CRRC Sifang America is creating some 170 new jobs for local residents.
"It's interesting to see CRRC is concentrating on the CTA cars. It's interesting to see the process and the project from the other side, from the manufacturing side. So it's exciting to be involved in that," Popovich said.
Speaking of CRRC Sifang America's spirit of "Built in America, by Americans, for Americans, Popovich said that's part of the reason that CRRC invested in the local community in Chicago. "It's the message it's sending, and also a message demonstrated by everything we see here in terms of the facility, how it's been built, who built it, who's working at the facility."
"It's not just the words, it's actually the actions that support those words and that slogan," she stressed.
Official statistics show that CRRC has more than 25 U.S. suppliers at present, and is sourcing approximately 70 percent of the total cost of the railcar components from U.S. manufacturers.
"CRRC is really helping the United States with the procurement and competitive process too for building trains that are innovative and cost effective," said Popovich. "So locally, we've been very well received."
On a larger scale, CRRC wants to be part of the competition for different contracts, and has bid for contracts other than CTA, she added. "We hope that continues and that we can continue to compete for business here in the United States."
Speaking of current global situation, Popovich said it would be naive to say that there isn't sort of an impact on her company. "But I think what CRRC has done very well is it stays focused on the work that needs to be done. It stays focused on the fact that there are a number of CTA cars that need to be built, and they need to be built on a certain schedule and they need to be quality trains."
"The focus is to make sure that we do that the way we're supposed to do it," she said.