Thrustmaster Announces Factory Expansion

Thrustmaster of Texas, a manufacturer of commercial marine propulsion products, signed a deal last week to expand its Houston-based production facility by 100,000 sqft (93,000 sq m).

Thrustmaster said the multimillion dollar investment has been in the making for two years and is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2015 by Third Coast General Contractors. 

The project includes plans to double the size of the product testing area, add an onsite paint and blast facility, develop a new fabrication shop, expand machine shop operations, expand the assembly area and add a multitude of upgrades that will lend to the efficiency and precision of thruster production.

An immediate benefit of the expansion is the hiring boost for the manufacturing sector of Houston’s economy as Thrustmaster expands its workforce to meet the growing needs of its global customer network, the company said.

Thrustmaster opened its current 200,000 sqft (18,600 sq m) thruster factory with total in house fabrication, machining, assembly, inspection and testing capabilities just five years ago on a 60 acre lot in Northwest Houston. In addition to its manufacturing and warehouse area, Thrustmaster’s Houston facility also has more than 40,000 sqft (3,700 sq m) of office space for our design engineering department and administration services.

Thrustmaster of Texas, Inc. manufactures commercial marine propulsion and thruster products including deck-mounted propulsion units for barges, azimuthing thrusters in the form of Z-drives and L-drives, retractable thrusters, waterjets, tunnel thrusters and the patented portable dynamic positioning system. All products are manufactured in strict adherence to ISO-9001; 2000 edition standards.

The factory and production of all thrusters is based out of Houston, Texas with sales and support offices in Rotterdam, Singapore, Dubai, Brazil and China.

2014 has been shaping up to be a busy year for Thrustmaster – in February the company expanded its product lineup to include waterjets after acquiring the technology of DOEN Pacific. DOEN, a designer and manufacturer of water jet propulsion systems for the past 48 years based out of Australia, is one of five marine waterjet manufactures in the world building waterjets up to 4,000 kW.