Tour the World's Largest Thruster Factory Online
Have you ever wanted to tour the largest dedicated thruster factory in the world located in Houston, Texas? Now you can. A peek behind the curtain of Thrustmaster of Texas, Inc. was typically available for customers and open day events but now this experience is available online. Thrustmaster of Texas, working with a partner of Google’s Business Photos has developed a virtual tour showcasing the scale of operation underway in the 200,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
The tour highlights the scope of the azimuth thrusters in the assembly area, the HPU’s (Hydraulic Power Units), CNC machining equipment in utilization for each thruster, as well as the one of the largest Zeiss CMM machines in the U.S. used for precision quality measurements of each part of the thruster.
Overhead you will find over eight cranes with a 55ft hook height and capable of lifting and moving loads ranging from 100 tons to 15 tons safely and quickly around the facility.
As Joe Bekker, President of Thrustmaster, explained in the opening ceremony of the facility in 2009, “What you are looking at is a large plant to build large thrusters. We are in the thruster business and we mean to stay here in the Thruster business for the long haul.” The investment in Thrustmaster’s expansion totaled $40 million.
In addition to our manufacturing and warehouse area, Thrustmaster’s Houston facility also has over 40,000 square feet of office space for our advanced engineering department and administration services.
Thrustmaster of Texas, Inc. manufactures heavy duty commercial marine propulsion and thrusters including deck-mounted propulsion units for barges, thru-hull azimuthing propulsion in the form of Z and L drives, retractable thrusters, transverse tunnel thrusters, and the patented Portable Dynamic Positioning System.
The factory and production of all thrusters is based out of Houston, Texas with sales offices in Rotterdam, Singapore, Dubai, Brazil and India. The company also has a service office in Houma, Louisiana to respond to our off-shore clients working out of that region.
