Toyota Industries Corp. and its subsidiary, Nishina Industrial Co. Ltd., liked what they saw in Franklin when choosing the location of their first joint operation in American.  The two Japanese companies established Indiana Hydraulic Equipment Corp., a 58,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Franklin Business Park. Indiana Hydraulic will supply hydraulic components for Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing.  The plant will open this May with a total capital investment of $12 million.

Nestle made a big splash in Johnson County when the company decided to locate its new bottled water production plant in Greenwood. A leading producer of bottled water, Nestle Waters North America Inc. looked at a number of other locations both in Indiana and out of state before selecting the Precedent South Business Park in Greenwood. Nestle will invest $32 million in this project. The company will make one million bottles per day of Nestle(trade mark here) Pure Life brand bottled water when it opens this year.

Johnson County also proved to be appealing for a new headquarters operation.  Compass Automotive Group will locate in Franklin as part of a consolidation and expansion project involving two of its subsidiary companies. The two subsidiaries are Casting Technologies Corp (CTC), an aluminum squeeze caster and Magnesium Aluminum Corp (MAC), a die cast manufacturer of highly engineered aluminum and magnesium components. Compass will combine the product lines, manufacturing excellence and quality systems and MAC and CTC will provide components to car makers and Tier 1 auto suppliers. The total capital investment for this merger is $4.8 million.