On Sept. 24, 2026, Amazon and Indiana Gov. Mike Braun announced that Amazon will invest more than $100 million in a 585,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing plant at 1175 Collins Road in Greenwood, Johnson County, south of Indianapolis. The site will put advanced fabrication, robotic welding, automated powder coating and assembly under one roof. It is expected to launch by 2028, and welders, CNC operators and powder coating technicians are among its 300 planned jobs.
Amazon robotics manufacturing Indiana plant: the basics
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Announced: Sept. 24, 2026, jointly by Amazon and Gov. Braun (Amazon press release; WBIW).
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Investment: more than $100 million.
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Site: 1175 Collins Road, Greenwood, Indiana; 585,000 square feet (WISH-TV).
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Processes: advanced fabrication, robotic welding, automated powder coating and assembly, supported by AWS and AI-powered smart manufacturing systems.
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Jobs: 300 manufacturing and engineering positions. Amazon says the roles "earn an average of nearly $100,000 per year."
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Timeline: "expected to launch by 2028," per Amazon. Area Development reports production is scheduled to begin in 2028, with 300 jobs by the end of that year.
A note on timing: the headline framing that Amazon "is hiring" gets ahead of the facts. None of the announcement materials include job postings or a hiring start date. The accurate reading is that Amazon plans to hire for a plant that opens in 2028.
What the plant will make
Amazon's release is worded carefully: "The facility will produce products used in Amazon fulfillment centers across North America." The release does not use the word robots to describe Greenwood's output, and it names no specific products.
Other outlets frame the plant more broadly. Quartz describes Greenwood as a robot-making plant, the fourth such plant for Amazon, and says it will supply "parts for Amazon's North American fulfillment and robotics operations." Quartz also reports that Greenwood, together with the Austin, Texas robotics plant Amazon announced on Aug. 19, 2026, will double Amazon's robot-making capacity. Those two claims come from Quartz. Amazon's release does not make them.
Amazon does say it "has built one of the largest industrial robotics manufacturing operations in the world at its facilities in Massachusetts and manufactured more than one million robots in the U.S. to date." Based on the process list, Greenwood looks like the metal side of that effort: fabricated, welded, coated and assembled hardware, rather than electronics or software.
Why operators should read this as vertical integration
This section is analysis, not reported fact. Fabrication, welding, powder coating and assembly are the core services of a contract fab-and-finish shop. When a company with Amazon's volume brings those steps in-house for its own fulfillment equipment, regional suppliers should not treat Greenwood as a new customer. It is a large captive shop entering the same labor market they hire from.
That distinction matters for sales planning. The announcement contains nothing that points to outsourced work for Indiana job shops. The plant is built to do the work itself, with robotic welding cells and automated coating lines. The pressure on local shops will come from competition for the people who program, run, inspect and maintain that equipment.
The trades list overlaps with every job shop in the metro
Amazon lists these roles for Greenwood:
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CNC operators
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Welders
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Powder coating technicians
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Assemblers
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Manufacturing engineers
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Quality assurance specialists
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Controls engineers
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Program managers
Almost all of these match the org chart of a typical Indianapolis-area contract fabricator or tier-2 supplier, which is why we see the overlap as direct (again, our analysis). Controls engineers and QA specialists who can run a robotic weld cell or document a coating process are hard to find in any market, and a new employer with Amazon's name recognition will draw applications from them.
Reading the pay number carefully
The number most coverage has repeated is "an average of nearly $100,000 per year." Operators planning 2027 and 2028 labor budgets should read it with three caveats.
1. It is a blended average. The 300 roles include manufacturing engineers, controls engineers and program managers as well as assemblers and welders. An average across that mix tells you nothing on its own about the welder or coating technician rate. Amazon did not disclose pay by trade.
2. Average and median are both in circulation. Holly Sullivan, Amazon's VP of Economic Development, said in the release that the facility "will create jobs with a median salary well above the regional average." Amazon did not publish a median figure. The only number given is the average.
3. The local benchmarks are well below it. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' May 2025 wage release for Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, published July 9, 2026, gives these means:
| Occupation group | Indianapolis metro mean | U.S. mean | Share of metro employment | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | All occupations | $31.34/hr | $33.54/hr | 100% | | Production | $24.48/hr | $24.81/hr | 6.0% (5.5% nationally) | | Architecture and engineering | $46.08/hr | $51.36/hr | 1.5% (1.7% nationally) |
ManufacturingMag's calculation, assuming 2,080 full-time hours a year: the local production mean works out to about $50,900 a year, and the all-occupation mean to about $65,200. "Nearly $100,000" comes to roughly $48 an hour, about double the local production mean. It is also slightly above the local architecture and engineering mean of about $95,800 a year.
These comparisons show the size of the gap, not what Amazon will pay a welder. Because the $100,000 figure includes engineering and management salaries, it cannot be read as a trade rate. We could not verify metro-level wage data for individual trades, so we do not publish local welder or coater benchmarks here.
Scale in context
Three hundred jobs is a modest number for a metro where production occupations make up 6.0% of employment, above the national share of 5.5%. We do not expect Greenwood to move metro-wide wages. The effect will be concentrated in a few trades: robotic welding, powder coating, CNC operation, controls and quality. For a mid-market shop that depends on a few certified welders or one experienced coating lead, losing even two people to a new employer can hurt throughput.
If you want to put a number on that risk, our downtime cost calculator separates lost contribution from incremental recovery costs such as overtime and expediting. That makes it useful for estimating what an unstaffed weld cell or coating line costs per shift.
What local manufacturers can do before 2028
Analysis and recommendations. A 2028 launch gives shops in the area roughly two budget cycles to prepare. Useful steps:
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Run a retention review now. Identify the certified welders, powder coating technicians, CNC operators and controls people whose departure would stop a line. Check their pay against current market data, not last year's structure.
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Build or expand an apprenticeship pipeline. A skilled-trades pipeline takes years to fill, and a plant opening in 2028 will be hiring from whatever pool exists then. Shops that start apprentices in 2026 and 2027 will have people who are qualified, and loyal, when recruiting ramps up.
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Cross-train on critical processes. If only one person can dial in your coating line or program your weld robot, you have a single point of failure. Cross-training lowers the cost of any one departure.
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Budget for a wage adjustment in 2027 and 2028. Even without trade-level figures from Amazon, a large employer advertising a near-$100,000 average will shape what candidates expect.
Incentives and the site
Quartz reports that "Amazon stood to gain from a tax abatement that had been obtained by the site's previous developer." The announcement materials we reviewed (Amazon's release, WBIW, WISH-TV and Area Development) did not give the abatement's amount, term or holder, and did not describe any state incentive package.
Local officials were enthusiastic. Greenwood Mayor Mark W. Myers told WISH-TV: "We want projects that bring real, long-term value to our community, and 300 skilled jobs with average salaries of nearly $100,000 a year is exactly the kind of opportunity we want to see." Amanda Rubadue of Aspire Johnson County told the station the project "checks so many of the boxes we identified when developing Johnson County's new economic development strategy."
Gov. Braun said in Amazon's release: "This $100 million investment will bring 300 high-paying, skilled jobs to the community that offer Hoosier families real careers in advanced manufacturing. Indiana has always been a state that builds things, and Amazon's investment reinforces our position as the nation's leader in manufacturing."
According to Amazon and WISH-TV, Amazon has invested more than $40 billion in Indiana since 2008 and employs more than 27,000 people directly in the state.
Comparison: Greenwood vs. Austin
| | Greenwood, Indiana | Austin, Texas | | --- | --- | --- | | Announced | Sept. 24, 2026 | Aug. 19, 2026 | | Investment | More than $100 million | "Multi-billion-dollar" | | Jobs | 300 manufacturing and engineering | 300 to 500 manufacturing and engineering | | Output (per Amazon) | Products used in Amazon fulfillment centers across North America | Robotics systems that work alongside Amazon employees to handle repetitive tasks and heavy lifting | | Timing | Expected to launch by 2028 | See Amazon's Austin release |
The difference in investment suggests the two plants have different jobs to do. Amazon describes Austin as building robotics systems. Greenwood's process list (fabrication, welding, coating, assembly) points to heavier metal hardware. Quartz treats the two as a pair that together doubles Amazon's robot-making capacity.
What is still undisclosed
Four gaps matter to a plant manager setting a 2027 to 2028 labor budget:
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Pay by trade. No welder, coater, CNC or assembler rates have been published.
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Median pay. Sullivan referred to a median, but no figure was released.
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Incentive terms. Neither the abatement Quartz mentions nor any state package has been detailed publicly.
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Hiring start date. Only the 2028 launch and the end-of-2028 jobs target are public.
When Amazon posts its first Greenwood job listings, the trade-level pay ranges will be the number to watch. Until then, local shops should plan for a well-funded competitor for skilled labor rather than wait for a precise figure.
This article is based on public announcements, news coverage and Bureau of Labor Statistics data. ManufacturingMag did not visit the site or interview Amazon or local officials. Quotes are taken from the sources cited.
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Sources
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Amazon to Create 300 High-Paying Jobs at New Advanced Manufacturing Facility in Greenwood, Indiana, Amazon US Press Center
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Governor Braun announces 300 high-wage jobs at new Amazon manufacturing facility, WBIW
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Amazon to invest $100M in new Greenwood manufacturing facility, WISH-TV
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Amazon building $100 million robotics plant in Indiana, Quartz via Yahoo Finance
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Amazon Plans Greenwood, Indiana, Manufacturing Operations, Area Development
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Amazon Announces New Manufacturing Facility in Austin, Texas, Amazon US Press Center
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Occupational Employment and Wages in Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, May 2025, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics