One of Peachtree City’s oldest industrial tenants is poised for a major growth spurt.

Gov. Sonny Perdue and NCR Corporation Senior Vice President Christine Wallace announced Tuesday that NCR, a Fortune 500 technology company, will establish a global Center of Excellence in Georgia, co-locating several key components of its Worldwide Customer Service operations and creating 916 new jobs in the next 26 months.

The expansion will make the city’s NCR campus the company’s global headquarters for customer service with an addition of roughly 560 of those new jobs in Peachtree City, said Matt Forshee, the CEO of the Fayette County Development Authority.

NCR plans to spend $15 million to expand its facilities in Peachtree City and Duluth.

The company will co-locate an NCR Learning Center and its Customer Care Center hub for the Americas region with the company’s existing Global Service Materials operation in Peachtree City.

The 360,000-square-foot facility in Peachtree City will be extensively remodeled to create a world-class service support environment and training facility, according to the governor’s office.

The Peachtree City and Duluth facilities will house interrelated functions that support service delivery to NCR’s customers throughout the U.S. and Canada, and coordinate with NCR service centers in other regions to support customers on a global basis.

Co-locating these functions in the greater Atlanta area will create a collaborative community of service professionals that can more easily share service knowledge and best practices, the governor said.

The Peachtree City facility will also enable visitors to observe NCR’s end-to-end service delivery process within a single location

Because it will be a training center, the company will host an average of 125 trainees a week for a total of 6,250 a year, Forshee said. The company expects to be hired at full staff within three years, he added.

The company’s $15 million investment is mostly in renovating the current facility with no new footprint expected, Forshee said. The new activity at NCR will incorporate a variety of jobs added to the NCR campus from the engineering and executive level to the call center employee, Forshee said.

The project will supplement the company’s parts and logistics operations currently taking place on the NCR campus in Peachtree City.

NCR is an industry leader in self-serve kiosks from automated teller machines to retail checkouts. NCR products are also deployed in the self-serve check-in kiosks for Delta Air Lines at Hartsfield International Airport.

The new effort will include a learning center that has a “customer service university” to train employees, NCR officials announced.

The Peachtree City facility will host a call center, a help desk and offer high-level technical support for customers and the company’s various corporate partners. The facility will also have some engineering functions.

Along with Delta Air Lines, NCR also provides products and services for Home Depot and SunTrust bank, among others, officials said.

In addition to a tax abatement package, the state of Georgia is also offering a “jobs grant” program that will refund $500 per employee for the first 200 employees who have a minimum annual salary of $60,000 a year, Forshee said.

NCR’s 2007 revenue was $4.97 billion with 23,200 employees worldwide. The company took in $1.38 billion in the quarter ending Sept. 30, an increase of 8 percent from the same quarter last year.

The company’s current location is at 200 Ga. Highway 74 South. NCR deals in wholesale sales of office equipment, computers, software, supplies and stationary in addition to office machine maintenance and repair services.

Perdue said the technology provided by NCR, which includes development of the world’s first bar code scanning system, “improves the things that you do and I do everyday.”

“We are expanding a business with a worldwide reputation that has a presence here,” Perdue said.

“The creation of this Center of Excellence underscores NCR’s commitment to its growing Worldwide Customer Services business and to exceeding our customers’ expectations of NCR as a dependable technology partner,” said Wallace. “Georgia’s thriving business environment and large, multilingual workforce will enhance NCR’s ability to provide cost-effective service delivery and the world’s highest levels of customer satisfaction and solution availability.”

“We thank this Fortune 500 Company for their investment in our community,” said Peachtree City Mayor Harold Logsdon. “Peachtree City’s slogan is ‘Plan to Stay’ and we are thrilled to know that NCR has chosen to do just that by announcing their decision to expand their operations here. In choosing Peachtree City for their Customer Services Center of Excellence, NCR is demonstrating that Peachtree City is the preeminent location for world class industry to locate and grow, and that they value our unique location and quality of life.”

Fayette officials on hand included Forshee of the county’s Development Authority, and other representatives from the FCDA, the County Commission and the City Council. Also attending were state Rep. Matt Ramsey and state Sen. Ronnie Chance.