Sony Terre Haute aggressively ‘turning the Titanic around’

Bruce Springsteen's album "Born in the USA" was the very first CD produced in North America—and it was Hoosiers at the Sony DADC plant in Terre Haute who manufactured that music history.

The iconic facility has ridden the technology wave since it opened in 1983; at peak operation in 2008, the plant churned out 4 million discs daily with production lines running 24/7.

But technology changed, and demand dropped. In an effort to remain a pillar in the community, the Sony plant is now rewriting its soundtrack and pivoting to two other Hoosier strengths: medical device and automotive manufacturing.

Beginning with Bruce in 1983, the Sony plant was a disc-making machine as demand climbed for 25 years. The facility benefitted from each iteration of technology, from making CDs, to DVDs, to LaserDiscs, to Blu-rays and PlayStation games. After peaking in 2008 with some 2,000 workers at the facility—and on the heels of the first iPhone hitting the market in 2007—demand for discs waned.

Through outsourcing, consolidation and laying off nearly 1,000 workers, the plant kept its head above water, "but it was somewhat of a losing battle," says Sony DADC Senior Vice President Chad Bolin.

Manufacturing disc PlayStation games helped the facility weather the storm, but as game downloads take a bigger and bigger share of the market, the company outsourced the replication and printing of disc-based games to Austria in March 2022.

"That was our low," says Bolin. "We rode the wave high for 25 years. For the last 13 years, it's been trying to keep as much of the work here as we possibly could, keep as many people employed as we could, but we really weren't growing. At that point, we decided we had to get very aggressive about turning the Titanic around."

While discs are no longer produced at the Terre Haute plant, the facility still packages and distributes them, "so every single PlayStation game in North America is still flowing through this building." PlayStation consoles also provide steady work; the plant packages and distributes 90% of the consoles sold in the U.S.

And now the plant is writing its comeback story, says Sony DADC New Business Development Manager Heather Strohm, who Sony hired one year ago to lead the charge. The plant already has a partnership with North American Lighting, which makes automotive lighting systems, but Sony is leaning heavily into medical device manufacturing.

Strohm said the fate of another Indiana facility helped her see the potential in the Terre Haute plant.

The 1.3 million square-foot facility has a clean room where the plant formerly manufactured discs. Strohm says the 110,000 square-foot clean room would be ideal for medical device manufacturing, but the plant is open to considering any operation.

"[A clean room] is one of the most expensive things to build, and Sony has one right here in the Wabash Valley that is available," says Strohm.

"[The clean room] could be used for a variety of things in the medical space, like the assembly of medical devices," says Bolin. "We’ve done injection molding of discs in the clean room, so we could also injection mold any plastic parts that need to be in a clean room."

The facility has "a very strong prospect" that would occupy about 20% of the clean room space. The plant also has 200,000 square feet of warehousing space available and "a lot of gems…that people have no clue about," such as "a renowned IT department," says Strohm.

Employment has tumbled from 2,000 workers in 2008 to about 300 now, so Sony leaders want to arrange any new partnerships in a way that benefits its "highly-skilled, cross-trained" employees, who have an average tenure of 25 years.

Bolin says "it's been a momentum thing" over the past 12 months; the plant is now getting interest from other companies about partnerships.

"One option could be for a company to lease space, but that really doesn't help the Sony employees," says Bolin, "so we’re really pushing to try to make sure the businesses we do bring in utilize our employees, grow our employee base and give them opportunities."

After operating as a closed entity for decades, Bolin says the biggest challenge has been "getting the word out" that "Sony is open for business." With potential clients reaching out to explore partnerships, Bolin is confident new business will keep the plant alive. He notes even if PlayStation game discs become another relic of the past as more games are downloaded, packaging and distributing consoles will remain a consistent line of work for Sony DADC.

"I think in three to five years, this is going to be a very thriving, hopping place with a variety of businesses that we’ve never been in before. I feel very optimistic about that," says Bolin. "We’re looking forward to seeing which of these opportunities or partnerships we’re going to be successful with. We’re setting the stage for the next decade."