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WINSTON-SALEM -- Caterpillar cut the ribbon on its newest North Carolina manufacturing facility Wednesday. Officials said the $426 million investment would support the company's growing mining operations and employ more than 500 workers at full production in 2014.

The sprawling 850,000 square foot plant will produce axle assemblies for the largest Cat mining trucks that will be exported around the globe.

"In fact, nine out of every 10 axles will be exported from this plant outside of the U.S.," said Caterpillar Group President Steve Wunning.

The plant employs about 125 workers now. Wunning said at least another 375 would be added as production ramps up over the next two-and-a-half years.

"There will be some logistics people, some machining, manufacturing, assembly and painting. So, it's all the things that go together to manufacturer these axles,” he said.

The painting department has a capacity of 24 trucks a day.

"We'll index product through the paint system,” said technical services manager Shawn Meck, who oversees several departments including painting. “We'll apply an epoxy and a urethane finish coat on it and we'll produce a part every 30 minutes."

Caterpillar is touting its efforts toward sustainable manufacturing.

"You'll see results of that here including 40 percent less water consumption and 26 percent less energy usage,” said finance manager Matthew Johnson. “A lot of different metrics like that we've been targeting including zero percent waste in the facility."

With the Winston-Salem opening, Caterpillar now operates plants in 10 North Carolina cities including Cary, Charlotte, New Bern, Clayton, Franklin, Goldsboro, Morganton, Sanford and Smithfield.

Local and state incentives helped attract Caterpillar to the Twin City. Mayor Allen Joines said the new operation would produce a great return on investment for everyone involved.

"Winston-Salem has committed $13 million to this project over a 10 year period, but during that same 10-year period Winston-Salem will net $5 million," Joines said.

Several cities including Montgomery, Ala. and Spartanburg, S.C. competed for this facility. The company said Winston-Salem topped the list of competitors for several reasons including location.

"It's very close to ports,” said Wunning. “Two, it's the people. There's some great talent in Winston-Salem for us to attract. Really good jobs and people to fill those jobs."