Manufacturing News
October 11, 2026
October 11, 2026 · Tippecanoe County · Story 2 of 5
SEL's $25 Million West Lafayette Vertical-Integration Bet
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories is putting $25 million into its only Indiana plant, inside Purdue's Discovery Park District in West Lafayette, to bring printed circuit board assembly in-house for the first time. The project adds surface mount, electronic assembly, and conformal coat lines, pushes recloser-control capacity up more than 35%, and adds about 130 jobs to the current headcount of 211. Completion is targeted for March 2027.
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories is putting $25 million into its only Indiana plant, inside Purdue's Discovery Park District in West Lafayette, to bring printed circuit board assembly in-house for the first time. The project adds surface mount, electronic assembly, and conformal coat lines, pushes recloser-control capacity up more than 35%, and adds about 130 jobs to the current headcount of 211. Completion is targeted for March 2027.
SEL is pulling PCB assembly under one roof to match the integrated supply chains that ABB and Siemens already run against it in the recloser-control market, part of a buildout that tops $500 million across SEL's facilities nationally. The harder number for other Tippecanoe County employers: SEL's new manufacturing wage floors run $26, $31, and $36 an hour across shifts, inside the same 400-acre district as Rolls-Royce's test facility and SkyWater's planned $1.8 billion semiconductor fab. Every other employer drawing from that labor pool is now competing against those wage floors.
For your morning huddle
- Q
Given SEL's new wage floors and the Rolls-Royce/SkyWater talent pull inside the same district, is our starting pay for PCB and electronics assembly roles still competitive in that labor shed?
No. SB 1 excludes equipment located inside an existing tax increment financing district from the new 30% depreciation-floor relief, which means manufacturers already sitting in a TIF district for abatement purposes, often the same plants with the newest capital equipment, are the least likely to see the relief the law was built to deliver. Check your facility's TIF status before you assume the new depreciation floor applies to you.
Briefing note
- Impact
- SEL is pulling PCB assembly in-house to match the integrated supply chains ABB and Siemens already run against it in the recloser-control market, part of a $500 million-plus multi-state SEL buildout. The bigger local story: this plant sits in the same 400-acre Discovery Park District as Rolls-Royce's test facility and SkyWater's planned $1.8 billion semiconductor fab, and SEL's new manufacturing wage floors (reported at $26/$31/$36 an hour across shifts) will pressure every other Tippecanoe County employer competing for the same production talent.
- Watch
- The March 2027 completion date, and whether Indiana discloses any EDGE tax credits or workforce grants tied to the deal, a detail no outlet has yet reported.
Sources
- SEL’s latest expansion planned in Indiana · dnews.com
Earlier coverage
- West Lafayette Splits $500M in SK hynix Tax Revenue, Advances $85M Sewer Expansion
- Saab T-7A West Lafayette Plant (Tippecanoe County): Full-Rate Production Pushed to 2029
- Caterpillar's $890M Lafayette Retooling Is a Supplier Signal, Act on It Now
- Evonik Commits $100M to Modernize Tippecanoe Labs in Lafayette
- SK Hynix's $3.8B West Lafayette Chip Plant: Construction Exposure Your Contractors Need to Know
From the brief, October 11, 2026
- Nucor's $105 Million Crawfordsville Expansion
- SEL's $25 Million West Lafayette Vertical-Integration Bet
- Indiana's 25.8% Industrial Property Tax Jump Sets Up Higher 2027 Bills
- Central Indiana Flooding Exposes a Business-Interruption Insurance Gap
- Indiana Joins Even Exchange Program for Veteran CDL Waivers
This story
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