Goodyear Suspends Production at Gadsden Plant – Again

Goodyear’s tyre factory in Gadsden, Alabama, has again been shut down of a week due to a shortage of raw materials and to reduce the company’s overall tyre production, company officials announced on September 29. This is the second such recent occurrence for the Gadsden plant; between August 16 and September 2 the facility was closed for an ‘inventory adjustment’.

Goodyear Gadsden communications manager Jackie Brehm Edmondson said the plant shutdown began at 1 pm on September 27, and operations resume at 1am on October 5. Ms Edmondson commented that one reason for the closure was that Goodyear plants in Bayport, Beaumount and Houston had been affected by Hurricane Ike and were not able to provide Goodyear factories, including Gadsden, with raw materials used in tyre manufacturing. A total of four Goodyear factories have shut down for varying periods of time, and three other facilities had reduced their daily production levels.

“When you don’t have raw material to make tyres, you can’t make tyres,” Edmondson concluded.