New Goodyear Machinery Commences Production Ahead of Schedule

Goodyear Dunlop Tyres UK Limited has announced that new machinery, designed to improve the productivity and efficiency at their famous Bushbury, Wolverhampton plant, has commenced production ahead of schedule today. On 8 December Goodyear Dunlop announced the investment in new compounding equipment. After an intensive three months of teamwork, the new machinery, known in the industry as a ‘Banbury’ mixer, was unveiled today.

The announcement of the multi-million pound investment in this new machinery gave the team at Wolverhampton the challenge of installation, training and re-engineering to commence its use before the end of March.

UK production director Ian Taylor praised the workforce at the Wolverhampton plant: “This new Banbury mixer is one of eight such machines at our plant. It was a major challenge to commission such a large, critically important, piece of machinery without disrupting existing production. Our team worked superbly to install the machinery, and the first tests were run on 14 February, just nine weeks after the announcement. This was an amazing achievement considering the enormity of the challenge and the sheer size of the machine”

Since those first tests, the team has been focused on training before the machine officially began full production today.

The machine was unveiled by Ian Taylor and Francois Dele (Commercial Manufacturing Director, Europe), with the ribbon being cut by the longest serving associate in the mixing area, John McCarroll, who has nearly 40 years service at the Bushbury Lane plant.

The new machinery is capable of performing a wide range of compounding tasks with greater efficiency than before; with the tyre compounds being exported to other Goodyear Dunlop plants in France, Germany, Luxembourg and the company’s other major UK manufacturing facility at Fort Dunlop, Birmingham.

The Wolverhampton Plant opened in 1927, and in recent years has been restructured to become a focused ‘Mix Centre’ specialising in a process of converting raw materials, such as Natural rubber, Synthetic rubber & chemicals into compound, which is used in other factories. It also has a specialised retreading facility producing NextTread truck and bus tyres.

The Wolverhampton plant produces over 1500 tonnes of tyre production material each week for export, and employs over 350 people.