Michelin to Double Capacity at Romanian Plant

Production capacity at Michelin’s Victoria Floresti factory in Romania will reportedly double over a two-year period to eight million units. Investments in the facility commenced in 2004 are responsible for this substantial increase in capacity; an annual development programme worth 30 to 40 million euros has seen money injected into the factory each year.

“Production will double over the next two years,” stated the Victoria Floresti factory’s general manager Carmen Petcu to Romania’s Ziarul Financiar newspaper. “And this is the paradox of a process of technological change done as we go. The plant has been, over the past three years, and will be, over the next two years, an under construction site.”

In 2004, three years after its acquisition from the Tofan Group, the factory had reached a stage where the gradual replacement of manufacturing equipment was feasible. A replacement of 60 per cent of all equipment is planned, and this upgrading comes at a time when the factory is shifting towards the production of 15-inch tyres, which account for half of total production, as well as 16- and 17-inch tyres. The factory produces Michelin, Kleber and Kormoran brand tyres at the factory.

However Petcu notes that a doubling of production capacity does not entail an equal increase in the number of workers at the factory. Victoria Floresti will take on 100-150 new employees per annum in the coming years. Furthermore, the increase in capacity is said to be independent on the installation of new equipment.