Goodyear Invests 50 Million Marks in Production Base Philippsburg

This year Deutsche Goodyear will invest a total of 50 million marks in new production facilities at its Philippsburg factory while simultaneously introducing more flexible working hours. Having obtained the agreement of the works council to a seven-day week (now 21 shifts per week instead of the former 17 shifts), productivity at the German Goodyear factory is now set to increase once more. The additional capacity thus created will be utilised chiefly to produce high-speed tyres, whose market importance in Germany has been rising steadily for several years.

Central to the investment is super-modern machinery for the further improvement of product quality in the manufacturing process for high-speed tyres -–a market segment of central importance to Goodyear’s strategic development. “The production volume of five million tyres at Philippsburg will remain unchanged for the time being”, declared Leo Ruf, a member of the management, “but the share of high-speed tyres in our annual production will go up by 700,000 to approximately four million units.” The background: Since 1995 demand for technologically sophisticated tyres in high-speed categories of more than 240 km/h (speed indices W, Y and ZR) alone has grown by over 200,000 units per year in the German market.

This interesting niche is estimated to double from 1.5 to at least three million units by the year 2001..