With Wright Industries and Boundless Recreation both drawing from the same pool of assemblers and welders that Wabash's closure freed up in Elkhart County, is our wage and retention plan ready before Wright's 2028 hiring ramp hits full stride?

Start the comparison now, before Wright's hiring ramp fully kicks in: pull current wage data for assemblers and welders in Elkhart County and compare it against what a well-capitalized new entrant can offer with a 2028 hiring target already locked in.

If ITAMCO's 900-acre Plymouth innovation district can't access the same financing tools that built Lebanon's LEAP district until the General Assembly reopens the Innovation Development District program, should we be tracking the 2027 legislative session?

Yes. Any reopening of Indiana Code 36-7-32.5-9's designation window in 2027 would apply to future expansions statewide, not just Plymouth, so it is worth a line on your government affairs calendar now.

If a Tier 1 supplier like Dakkota Integrated Systems can lose an entire Stellantis program to a competitor overnight, how much of our own revenue sits with a single customer who could re-source it just as fast?

Run the math on your top customer's share of total revenue this week. If one account can be re-sourced on short notice the way CPK Interior Products displaced Dakkota, that concentration is the thing to address before a contract renewal, not after a layoff notice.

With MBDA facing a 20% funding rescission and a proposed zero budget for fiscal year 2027, what's our backup plan if the Hammond entrepreneurship pipeline loses federal funding mid-cohort?

If your facility is counting on PNW's academy or the broader Bloch Quantum Tech Hub talent pipeline for future hires, build a contingency now that does not depend on MBDA's fiscal 2027 budget surviving in its current form.

Manufacturing News TEG Daily

November 6, 2026 · Elkhart · Marshall · Lake

Wright Industries' Goshen Indiana Ambulance Manufacturer Expansion Leads This Week's Indiana Manufacturing News

Wright Industries' Goshen Indiana ambulance manufacturer expansion anchors a five-story week including ITAMCO's Plymouth rezoning and a 6,000-job layoff wave.

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Wright Industries' Goshen Indiana ambulance manufacturer expansion commits $18 million to a 380,000-square-foot former Wabash National plant, moving a company that did not exist before 2025 onto a campus built for a trailer maker that could not hold its own backlog. The same week, Plymouth cleared the zoning path for a 900-acre innovation district, a national WARN wave crossed 6,000 manufacturing jobs with an Indiana entry nobody outside Grant County noticed, a Hammond entrepreneurship academy picked up $2 million in federal funding tied to a much larger quantum-manufacturing project, and a defense-industry site-selection report raised a power-capacity question with Indiana's name attached to it. Five stories, one thread: capacity, labor, and financing across Indiana manufacturing are all in motion at once, and the fine print in each one tells a different story than the headline.

01Elkhart

Wright Industries' Goshen Indiana Ambulance Manufacturer Expansion Enters a Locked Market

Wright Industries, founded in 2025 by former Forest River Bus co-CEO David Wright, will spend $18 million acquiring the former Wabash National Services plant at 2672 E. Kercher Road in Goshen: 380,000 square feet on 72 acres, more than four times the 72,000-square-foot facility the ambulance maker has outgrown. The state expects over 250 new jobs there by the end of 2028.

For the huddle: If Wright Industries, Boundless Recreation, and other Elkhart County manufacturers are all chasing the same pool of assemblers and welders freed up by Wabash's closure, is our own wage and retention plan ready to compete before Wright's 2028 hiring ramp hits full stride?

SourcesAmbulance manufacturer expands operations in Goshen (wsbt.com)

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02Marshall

ITAMCO's 900-Acre Plymouth Innovation District Clears Zoning, Hits a Financing Wall

The Plymouth Plan Commission voted unanimously Wednesday night, after 120 residents and two hours of testimony, to recommend rezoning nearly 900 acres from residential to industrial for ITAMCO's proposed Indiana Innovation Center and District. Plan Director Ty Adley confirmed data centers are not a permitted use under the city's zoning ordinance, addressing the speculation that drove much of the crowd out.

For the huddle: If ITAMCO's innovation district can't tap the same financing tools that fueled LEAP in Lebanon until lawmakers reopen that designation window, should we be tracking the 2027 session for any similar state development tools that could apply to our own expansion plans?

SourcesPlan Commission greenlights massive rezoning for Indiana Innovation Center (giant.fm)

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03Statewide

October's 6,000-Job Manufacturing Layoff Wave Reaches Gas City, Indiana

U.S. manufacturers filed WARN notices covering more than 6,000 jobs in October. Dakkota Integrated Systems is closing its Detroit plant and cutting nearly 400 jobs after CPK Interior Products won the Stellantis Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango instrument panel contract, the same company that previously took business from Dakkota's Windsor, Ontario plant.

For the huddle: If a Tier 1 supplier like Dakkota can lose an entire Stellantis program to a competitor like CPK Interior Products with little warning, how exposed are our own single-customer contracts to the same kind of overnight re-sourcing?

SourcesOver 6,000 manufacturing layoffs announced in October (manufacturingdive.com)

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04Statewide

Defense and Aerospace Site Selection Turns to Power Capacity, With a Question for Indiana's Grid

Area Development's Q3 2026 feature by Vista Site Selection's Janie Hanna argues that record defense spending, a $1 trillion fiscal 2026 budget with a $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 request, and a record $49.1 billion in 2025 defense-tech venture funding, are pushing site selection toward workforce-depth analytics and power capacity instead of the industry's traditional clusters. Indiana already has real wins to point to: the ACMI National Security Industrial Hub near Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane has grown past 1,500 acres with tenants including iRocket and Limitless Aeronautics, Rolls-Royce completed a $1 billion decade-long Indianapolis build-out, and L3Harris tripled its Fort Wayne footprint with a $125 million expansion.

For the huddle: Do we know whether our own facility sits on a confirmed dual-feed industrial substation, given that MISO's modeling shows a growing regional capacity deficit that could disqualify Indiana sites from national defense-manufacturing searches before anyone even visits?

SourcesHow Aerospace and Defense Site Selection Criteria Are Evolving (areadevelopment.com)

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05Lake

$2M Federal Grant Launches Hammond Entrepreneurship Academy, With a Quantum-Manufacturing Catch

The U.S. Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency is awarding $2 million to the Roberts Impact Lab at Purdue University Northwest to launch the Entrepreneurship, Commercialization, and Innovation Academy at 5454 Hohman Ave. in downtown Hammond.

For the huddle: With MBDA facing an active 20% funding rescission and a proposed zero-budget for FY2027, what's our backup plan if PNW's entrepreneurship pipeline (and the quantum-manufacturing talent flow behind it) loses federal funding mid-cohort?

Sources$2M federal grant supports innovation hub at PNW (nwindianabusiness.com)

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Questions for your morning huddle

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