Erdrich Umformtechnik GmbH & Co. is the most recent German company to choose a Georgia site for investment.

Its $39 million investment in Dublin, Laurens Country, will  bring the number to 30 German companies that have located or expanded their business operations in the state during the past three years, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

Erdrich is a midsized, family-owned company that produces complex metal parts and subassemblies for the automotive industry. On Jan. 24, it announced that it would construct a state-of-the art metal stamping facility in Dublin.

It is the second German company to select Dublin for construction of a plant. Mage Solar AG has been manufacturing solar panels there since last year.

“The company looked at several Georgia communities,” Jim Blair, the department’s director of Foreign Direct Investment, told GlobalAtlanta. “Laurens County is very strategically located from a logistics perspective, right on I-16 close to the Savannah ports and the transportation hub of metro Atlanta.”

Mr. Blair also cited the involvement of Quick Start, Georgia’s workforce program that will provide training on a wide range of advanced manufacturing applications.

Erdrich has been in the metal stamping business for more than 50 years and has two plants in Germany, one in the Czech Republic and another in China that supply parts to other automotive supplier companies as well as to BMW AG, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen AG.

“By the end of 2013, we will have capabilities to supply quality products ‘Made in the USA’ to our customers across the United States,” said Walter Huber, who is responsible for Erdrich’s U.S. operation, in a news release.

The company is to create 178 jobs and invest $39 million in the construction of the 130,000-square-foot metal stamping facility. It is expected to begin construction of the plant in either May or June.

Georgia’s international office in Munich, Germany, first developed the relationship with Erdrich, which then was managed over the past year and a half by the state’s economic development department and the Dublin-Laurens County Development Authority.

According to the release from Gov. Nathan Deal’s office, interested applicants for positions at the plant should make their inquiries to the Laurens County Department of Labor office.

For more information, send an email to Alison Tyrer at the Georgia Department of Economic Development.