Sixth grade students from Pavilion toured several businesses during their annual nanotechnology/robotics tour with stops at GCEDC, Chassix and Post Farms on Friday.
Video News Service caught up with the students as they learned about Chassix, an automotive parts company located on Federal Drive in Batavia.
Chassix produces safety critical parts like steering knuckles, posting arms and control arms for automotive companies and automotive suppliers.
Chassix employs 130 people and produces 3 million products a year with $80 million in sales
Chassix originally started out in LeRoy as LeRoy Machine. In 1999 they were purchased by a husband/wife team out of Michigan.
In 2002, the company moved to its current location moving 10 production lines from the LeRoy location.
About 50 kids experienced what the production floor was like and were able to view and handle Chassix products first hand as the products came off the lines.
“Manufacturing has died off over the years,” says Plant Manager Doug Smith.
“There really isn’t a skilled work force in manufacturing anymore, especially in machining. Now we are CNC machiners so there is a lot of automation and robotics. We are looking for people with good work ethic that show up everyday and are drug free, just like at school.”
Pavilion Central Schools has partnered with the BEA(Business Education Alliance), who organized the tour as part of the Stem Career Days for students in grades 6-9th grade. The district has been involved with the program for about 4 years.