Corning Inc., the world“s largest maker of fibre-optic lines, will open a new manufacturing plant outside Scranton, Pennsylvania to make fibre-optic equipment, creating 1,000 new jobs, the company sa…
Corning Inc., the world“s largest maker of fibre-optic lines, will open a new manufacturing plant outside Scranton, Pennsylvania to make fibre-optic equipment, creating 1,000 new jobs, the company said recently. Corning will spend about US$ 50 million to renovate and open the 115,000-square-foot telecommunications plant in Benton Township, according to a press report. Hiring will begin this month, with the first products prepared for shipment in July. Corning said it chose Scranton because of its close proximity to company headquarters and research centre in Corning, New York. With firms racing to build fibre-optic networks that can carry vast amounts of data, Corning said it is trying to keep up with a growing demand for pure-glass fibre. Keeping its manufacturing facilities close by helps speed its products to market. The plant will be Corning“s second photonics plant. Photonics is a technology that transmits information over optical fibres in the form of light particles. The optical fibres are used in high-speed telephone, cable and Internet networks. Among other products, the plant will manufacture optical amplifiers, which boost signals that have travelled hundreds or thousands of miles over an optical fibre. It is about the size of a laptop computer. Corning, founded in 1851, has nearly doubled its work force to 33,000 in the last year and had US$ 4.3 billion in 1999 sales.