Polaris Industries Inc. has announced the grand opening of its new manufacturing facility in Opole, Poland.

The 345,000-square-foot facility will be the first Polaris plant dedicated to manufacturing Off-Road Vehicles (ORV's) outside of North America.


The new Opole facility

Employee training has already begun at the Opole facility which will employ 300 people in 2015 and should begin shipments to customers in the first quarter of 2015. The plant will produce approximately 35 different ORV vehicle models in 2015 and ship them to six subsidiaries and over thirty distributors in the Europe, Middle East and Africa ("EMEA") region.

Opole will also house research and design for the Europe, Middle East and Africa markets allowing vehicles to be tailored to local needs.

"With our engineering and manufacturing assets in Poland, we will be able to develop and manufacture products specifically for this market. We will reduce the order lead time for our customers and will be able to provide better customer service. We also have opportunities to source more of our component parts locally from suppliers within the region. This will be a big benefit to this entire region" said Suresh Krishna, Vice President, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The Opole facility took just over a year to construct with only 15 months lapsed from the time the building contract was signed to production start. The building features include a 2,500 meter product test track and energy saving paint systems. The plant has capacity for up to 500 employees to help Polaris meet future market demand.

This facility is built on nearly 30 acres, within the Walbrzych Special Economic Zone in Opole, Poland, an area dedicated to encouraging economic growth in the region