To keep up with General Motors Co.'s Allen County assembly plant, a major supplier is adding a third shift and 114 workers, its plant manager said Tuesday. 

Advanced Assembly LLC of Columbia City started hiring workers this week and will have the entire third shift hired and working by the time the GM plant starts its third shift in mid-May, said Jerry LaMere, Advanced Assembly's plant manager.

"They're coming on in waves," LaMere said.

Advanced Assembly is hiring 106 production workers and eight salaried employees. They will bring the company workforce to 365.

Production workers will start at $13.75 an hour. Those in the skilled trades will be paid $17.75, LaMere said.

Advanced Assembly makes full seat assemblies for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks built at GM's Allen County plant on the tightest of schedules.

"We deliver 35 minutes' worth of product at a time," La Mere said, describing how Advanced Assembly loads 42 seat units on skids as they're built. Then they are trucked to the GM plant and bolted into pickups.

As it went through bankruptcy last year, GM announced plans to close plants, including one in Pontiac, Mich., that made heavy-duty Sierras and Silverados.

GM also said last year it would invest $46 million in the Allen County plant to enable it to build heavy-duty pickups. It was part of a plan to consolidate production from the Pontiac plant into the Allen County plant and add a 700-employee third shift.