GE Appliances Pours $180M Into Georgia Factory as Robots Take the Floor

Expansion brings 600 new jobs, automation boom, and a new era of smart cooking products in small-town LaFayette

A $180 million investment doesn’t just land quietly in a place like LaFayette, Georgia. It hums. It clangs. It breathes life into the town’s largest employer. And now, with robots joining the line and hundreds of new hires clocking in, the Roper Corp. plant is doing a lot more than just assembling ranges — it’s evolving.

GE Appliances, owned by China’s Haier, officially wrapped up a major expansion of its Roper Corp. facility earlier this month, upgrading its cooking products division and adding two sparkling new lines dedicated to the GE, GE Profile, and Café brands. It’s not just the size of the investment — initially announced at $118 million back in 2021 and later boosted by an additional $60 million — it’s what that money is doing that’s turning heads across the appliance industry.

From Hand Tools to Robotic Arms

Walk the floor of the revamped plant and it’s obvious: this isn’t your granddad’s assembly line anymore.

What used to be done by hand — rotating units, programming control boards, mounting glass cooktops — is increasingly being taken on by robotic arms. These aren’t clunky or noisy. They’re swift, quiet, eerily precise. More than a third of the robotics work was rolled out over 2023, and there’s still more coming.

Roper Corp. president Luther Ingram confirmed that robotics implementation has only covered 30% of the facility so far. That leaves plenty of room to grow.

One quick line in the press release stood out like a flashing light: “robotics use has more than tripled.” That kind of change doesn’t just tweak the workflow. It rewrites it.

And still, people are essential.

600 New Jobs and a Pipeline of Talent

Here’s the kicker — automation didn’t cut jobs. It created them.

GE’s expansion added over 600 new positions, from line workers and maintenance techs to robotics engineers. But more machines meant one thing: workers needed new skills.

That’s where the state stepped in. In 2023, Roper secured grant funding from Georgia and teamed up with Georgia Northwestern Technical College to launch an apprenticeship program focused on robotics. So far, 45 employees have gone through it.

It’s a smart play in a labor market still aching for skilled hands. And it’s local. These jobs aren’t being offshored or piped into massive cities. They’re right here — feeding families, filling driveways, filling lunch pails.

Key workforce impact from expansion:

• 600+ jobs created

• 45 employees trained in robotics via apprenticeship

• State of Georgia contributed training grant

• Focus on internal upskilling and long-term retention

Smart Ranges, Smarter Business

All that new space and tech isn’t just for fun — it’s there to make stuff faster, better, and, well, smarter.

The factory can now churn out gas, electric, and induction ranges at higher volumes, and do it quicker. This means GE Appliances isn’t just reacting to demand — it’s outpacing it. The company is particularly excited about pushing its GE Profile Induction range, an affordable product line loaded with smart features.

And the expanded capacity allows them to do something they couldn’t before: launch new products faster.

One person familiar with the production process described it like turning a fishing boat into a speedboat. Less waiting. More shipping. Faster shelves.

Just one sentence here.

Inside a Small Town’s Industrial Giant

The Roper plant is no stranger to this town. It’s been a part of LaFayette’s landscape since 1973, quietly expanding while others closed down.

Today, it’s a 2,500-person operation that does it all in-house — stamping, painting, enameling, welding, even graphics. This isn’t a parts-and-assembly outfit. This is vertical integration at its most industrially poetic.

And now it’s faster, more digital, more agile. But still LaFayette to its core.

Let’s pause here with a table that breaks down the timeline and investments:

You don’t just build this kind of industrial anchor overnight. It takes decades. And now, thanks to this new investment, the plant’s legacy just got a serious upgrade.

Why This Matters Beyond Georgia

Sure, it’s great news for LaFayette. But this expansion reflects something bigger happening across the U.S.

Manufacturers are reshoring and automating at the same time — a hybrid strategy aimed at making American production both cheaper and faster, without sacrificing quality.

It’s not just about making ovens. It’s about proving that domestic production still makes sense, especially when it’s smart, lean, and heavily trained.

GE Appliances’ move is the kind of slow, strategic reinvestment that doesn’t always make flashy headlines — but maybe it should.

And it might hint at where the next wave of American factory jobs is heading. Not backwards. Forward — with a robotic assist.