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The changes underway at GE’s Louisville, Kentucky manufacturing plant continue to draw national attention for the way in which investing in a downturn can not only make good business sense, but have a ripple effect of good news on the jobs front. Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden visited GE’s Appliance Park to see firsthand the impact of GE’s $600 million investment in the facility — which is expanding production with three new energy efficient product lines. Biden told the GE employees assembled in the factory: “I don’t see where it’s written anywhere that we can’t be the manufacturing leader of the world again… I don’t see where it’s written that our nation’s, or Kentucky’s, best days are behind us.” As Jim Campbell, President and CEO of GE Appliances and Lighting, says in the video below, “This investment for this business is unprecedented.”

As part of its $600 million investment in Louisville’s Appliance Park, GE is not just bringing jobs to Kentucky — it’s re-imaging the entire manufacturing process. GE Appliances & Lighting’s new GeoSpring Hybrid Water Heater — which is the first completely new product line to be made at the factory in more than 50 years — is being developed using the Shingijutsu philosophy, or Lean production system. As you can see in the video below, it involves building the most efficient factory design via full-scale models using everything from cardboard barrels to Lego toys. As Louisville’s The Courier-Journal described it: “GE factory workers, engineers, designers and managers tore apart the GeoSpring hybrid water heater now produced in China…, examining in minute detail how the water heater will come together when the work moves to Louisville next year…. GE’s Japanese consultants call the approach ‘Kaizen,’ which means ‘continuous improvement.’ The Louisvillians call the build-from-scratch method ‘moonshining.’”

Economically hard-hit Michigan has another 220 jobs coming its way. Today GE announced that it’s expanded the commitment it made last year to locate 1,100 new jobs in the state — with the new total now topping 1,300 over the next five years. The new jobs are part of a significant investment being made by GE Aviation and will support the development and manufacturing of advanced jet engines and avionics systems. GE is now hiring technical talent at the rate of two per day in the state — with over 90 percent of the first 200 new hires coming from Michigan.

Louisville, Kentucky has scored another jobs win with today’s announcement that GE’s Consumer & Industrial business will make its new “smart” washer and dryers at its Appliance Park plant starting in 2012. Making the high-end machines will create 430 new manufacturing and engineering jobs. When combined with GE’s decision earlier this year to build a new hybrid water heater in Louisville, it brings the total number of new jobs announced in 2009 at the plant to 830.

Today GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt spoke at the United States Military Academy at West Point, focusing on the need for leaders who have the courage to change themselves and others if the country is to realize a better economic future after the seismic changes of the last year. And it’s precisely West Point’s values of “Duty, Honor, and Country” and its commitment to integrity, performance and change that “every person in the United States — from business and from government — can learn from,” he said.