Kenworth Truck Company’s assembly plant in Chillicothe, Ohio, recently celebrated its 40th anniversary.

The first Kenworth truck rolled off the Chillicothe assembly line in March 1974. Since that date, the employees at Kenworth’s largest plant have assembled more than 410,000 trucks with a focus on quality, efficiency, environmental stewardship and customer satisfaction.

"Our dedicated, well-trained employees take a great deal of pride in each and every high-quality Kenworth truck that comes off the line. And we provide the plant and our employees with leading-edge technology, production and logistics systems to produce The World’s Best trucks for our customers," said Judy McTigue, Kenworth-Chillicothe plant manager, who added that 3,000 customers visited the plant last year.

The plant launched the PACCAR MX engine for the Class 8 market in the United States and Canada in 2010, had a record capacity of 150 trucks per day in 2011, and added a state-of-the-art, robotic build cell for Kenworth’s new 6.9 ft. (2.1 m) cab introduced in conjunction with the launch of the new Kenworth T680 in 2012. A new volumetric paint mix machine also was installed at Chillicothe for enhanced paint quality.

In 2013, the plant launched the Kenworth T880 — the new flagship of the company’s vocational trucks — and began building the new 52-in. (132 cm) sleeper for the T680, in addition to introducing the PACCAR MX-13 into Kenworth production.

Chillicothe has earned the prestigious ISO 14001:2004 certification for effective environmental management systems established to help build Class 8 trucks in an environmentally sustainable manner.