NTN Driveshaft Inc. (Columbus, Indiana, a division of NTN Corp. of America, a division of NTN Corp. of Osaka, Japan) is adding a third plant to produce CV drive shafts.

Currently, NTN Driveshaft's Columbus facility manufactures constant velocity joints and finished shafts for OEM auto and truck manufacturers in the United States. It is an integrated facility, with forging, grinding, heat treating and assembly. The plant's 750 employees produce approximately 500,000 finished shafts every month.

Until now, the shafts themselves have been outsourced and mated to CV joints during final assembly.

Now a new plant, 400,000 square feet and costing $50 million (half for the building, half for equipment), will be added to the Columbus facility for production of the shafts themselves. Expected to be running at capacity in three to four years, the plant will employ another 150 people.

As with many bearing manufacturers, the rolling elements are still outsourced. NTN's CV joint bearing balls are supplied by Hoover Precision Products (a subsidiary of Tsubaki Nakashima Co., Ltd.).

NTN refused comment for this article, but sources estimate the company has invested well over $500 million in the sprawling Columbus facility.