capacity Archives - Page 139 of 147 - Tyrepress

Posts

Bridgestone to build truck radials in India

Bridgestone plans to set up a plant in India that will make truck radials and help it establish a firm foothold in the country, the world’s fifth biggest tyre market. The tyre manufacturer’s local unit, Bridgestone ACC India, currently manufactures radial tyres for passenger cars and small vans at a factory located near Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Sources said Bridgestone officials are preparing a project report on the size of production capacity and investments required to set up the plant, which will take around 18-24 months to build.

5th January 2004/by Tyrepress Editors

Phillips Carbon Black profits up

Phillips Carbon Black has announced its net profit in the year ended in September had jumped 244 per cent on the back of a 10 per cent growth in sales. A spokesman for Phillips Carbon Black said significant growth in carbon black offtake was expected next year. “We have reached an agreement with a leading tyre manufacturer for export of 25,000 tonnes of carbon black. We are negotiating with another tyre manufacturer for a similar deal,” he added. The company is raising the capacity of its Baroda plant from 18,000 tonnes at present, to 88,000 tonnes. The production capacity of its plant at Durgapur is being scaled up by 25,000 tonnes to 150,000 tonnes.

19th December 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Cooper and Kenda in joint venture

Cooper has expanded its Far Eastern presence with a joint venture with Taiwanese tyre manufacturer Kenda. The two companies will build a plant to make radial passenger and light truck tyres, which will be situated in the Jiangsu Province of the People’s Republic of China and jointly owned by the two manufacturers. Construction will begin in the middle of next year, with tyre production starting late 2005. The tyres will be aimed at markets outside China. Speaking of the deal, Cooper’s Thomas A. Dattilo said: “It will allow us to add capacity and lower costs in our tyre business. It also gives us a base for sales in China down the road as the Chinese market increases significantly over the next decade.”

18th December 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Yokohama tyre plant for Rayong (update)

Yokohama Rubber Co aims to open a new plant in Thailand, planning to roll out tyres in April 2005. It plans to set up a company there in January to make radial tyres for trucks and buses. The company plans to spend 5.5 billion yen to build a plant in Rayong that will have an annual production capacity of 300,000 tyres in its initial phase. In the second phase annual production is scheduled to double to 600,000. Its main product will be 22.5-inch tyres, and they will be exported to markets around the world. Yokohama Rubber plans to acquire a site of up to 225,000 square metres in Rayong’s Amata City industrial park for the new plant. The plant will employ a “small-batch” production system, which is designed to maximises cost efficiency even on a relatively small production scale, Yokohama Rubber said. The company adds that it may build more tyre plants in Thailand in the future.

12th December 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Continental struggles for turn-around on North American tyre market

Earlier this year it was clear that the CTNA (Continental Tires North America, previously General Tire) would again have to report a three-figure million loss. In the meantime it seeped through that this number is closer to 150 million Euro than “only” around 100 million Euro. This frighteningly high loss shows: In the European tyre business the company makes huge earnings and if the American losses have finally come to an end, the tyre section is not just strongest in turn-over (despite the expected next year’s higher growth in the Automotive business unit), but also the yield-strongest. Tyres still have good expectations in the company; among other things this assumption was underpinned by the majority purchase of the tyre business of the Malaysian company Sime Darby Berhad with two tyre factories with an already existing production capacity of four million passenger car, one million small truck as well as 300,000 heavy truck tyres.

Talking to T&A at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, Manfred Wennemer (55) and Martien de Louw (57), who is responsible for Continental’s passenger car tyre unit as well as CTNA, affirmed that the American tyre business will reach break-even by the end of 2005. Wennemer specifies: “With the CTNA we will reach break-even in the last quarter of 2005 even though naturally we would be pleased, if we could reach it even earlier.”

Continental was not represented at the SEMA show with its own stand, unlike Bridgestone/ Firestone, Cooper, Goodyear, Michelin and Pirelli and other competitors, probably a cost-based decision. All too tragically this might not have been, because more important than meetings in the company’s booths at the show are meetings accompanying the SEMA show in the surrounding luxury hotels of the craziest city of the world. Martien de Louw and his executive team had invited the customers to an evening in the Mandalay Bay hotel, where hundreds of Continental’s “Best Friends” arrived. De Louw used this opportunity to present his complete executive team. Manfred Wennemer, who travelled to Las Vegas, too, was accessible “on the floor” for everyone, without pushing his colleague de Louw into the background. Optimism was noticeable in Las Vegas; but in order to see that the distance remaining to be covered remains rough and stony, requires no clairvoyance.

10th December 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

The Sleeping Giant Stirs

The Micheldever wholesale operation has been rapidly growing but until 2001 had been concentrated in the South. However, the desire to replicate the wholesale success achieved in the South had led Tony to search for strategically placed wholesale premises initially in the Midlands and North of England, and when Southam Tyres came on the market in October 2001, Tony beat off competition from UK, European and Far Eastern wholesalers to acquire the Southam business. This immediately provided Micheldever with the UK’s most successful 4×4 tyre distributor and its specialist sales team, plus exclusive distribution rights to BFGoodrich 4×4, General Tire and Roadhog. However, due to virtually zero investment from its previous owners, the Southam warehouse was poorly equipped, lacking adequate storage systems and having an ageing fleet of vehicles.

The Micheldever investment came swiftly, with a new fleet, tyreracking systems and a vastly increased range of stock. The benefits of having the most comprehensive range of car and 4X4 tyres available in the Midlands quickly led to excellent sales results for the previously product starved Southam sales teams.

However, the move that really sent the message out that Micheldever had intentions to become a national player was the announcement of the new Halifax depot. A purpose built warehouse on four floors it will have a capacity for 600,000 tyres. By mid 2003 work was progressing well at Halifax, and finally in Sept 2003 the UK’s largest tyre warehouse commenced deliveries on a phased schedule.

Obviously for Micheldever the main thrust of the business at present is the development of the wholesale division and taking the offer to the trade across the UK. One of the much-vaunted drivers for offering national coverage is the potential to be developed in the franchised dealer network. The opportunity to supply tyres as first fit on fleet cars through the franchised dealers is reportedly enormous.

Tony Todd is adamant that there are two factors to being successful. The first is that you can’t sell it if you haven’t got it; the second is that you can’t do the job unless you have got the right tools and the right people in place.

17th November 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Hayes Lemmerz in majority ownership of Turkish JV

Hayes Lemmerz International, Inc. has acquired an additional 35 per cent of its joint venture, Jantas Jant Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., in Turkey. Hayes Lemmerz now owns 60 per cent of the company, which is part of Hayes Lemmerz’ European Wheel Group. The remaining 40 per cent is held by Inci Holding A.S., Cevdet Inci, and members of his family. The joint venture has been renamed Hayes Lemmerz Jantas Jant Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S.. Jantas has the capacity to produce over 1.2 million wheels annually. “Jantas supplies over 175 customers in 50 countries,” said Curtis Clawson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hayes Lemmerz International. “We are confident in the tremendous opportunity Jantas provides to increase our market share in Western and Eastern Europe and Asia.”

14th November 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Michelin to join BMW in auto research park

BMW is to build a research centre focused on information technology in an automotive research park in Greenville. Michelin North America Inc., the Greenville-based subsidiary of the French tyre maker, said it will also participate in the park, in a capacity not yet defined. Nan Banks, a spokeswoman for the company in Greenville, said Wednesday Michelin will play a role in the park. “We’re going to determine the form that support will take as the project unfolds,” she said. Michelin, which already has a research and development operation in Greenville County, sees Clemson’s park “as something that will expand and enhance the activities we already have here.”

13th November 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Fire at Ellerbrock

Early this morning fire broke out at Ellerbrock Tread in Henstedt-Ulzburg. The 6,500 square metre production hall has fallen victim to the flames. There are approximately 200 fire-fighters on site fighting the fire and it is expected that it will take the whole weekend to bring the fire under control. According to the local radio station in Schleswig-Holstein damage is estimated to run to approximately 15 million Euro. Marketing and sales director Dirk Rohmann stated at the factory gates in Hamburg that it was too early to state the extent of the damage. The fire had damaged the production facility but only after the fire is completely extinguished will the full extent of the damage be assessed. The cause of the fire is not known at present.

7th November 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

GM plans further Chinese expansion

GM is to extend its factory at Shanghai to increase capacity from 500,000 units to 760,000 by 2006. No cost has been revealed, but press estimates are around $241 million. Another GM joint venture, manufacturing light trucks, is also set to more than double capacity by 2006, to 336,000 units.

5th November 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Yokohama to extend Chinese factory

Yokohama has announced that it is to spend US$26 million to double capacity at its Chinese factory to 1.4 million tyres a year by the end of 2004. Originally the timetable for the expansion was the end of 2006, but increased demand has prompted Yokohama to bring the plan forward.

31st October 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

JV between Stamford Tyres and Sumitomo in China

Singapore-based Stamford Tyres is entering into a joint venture with Sumitomo Rubber Industries to produce passenger car radials in a new factory in China, being built by SRI. SRI will hold 60 per cent of the JV. The factory should begin production in the first quarter of next year and will eventually have an annual capacity of three million units, destined for both domestic and export markets.

17th October 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Ford and Mazda to expand capacity in Thailand

Ford and Mazda are to invest $500 million in their joint venture in Thailand; a country that Bill Ford says “will spearhead Ford’s Asian growth strategy”. The investment will increase annual production from 135,000 vehicles to 200,000, plus Ford plans to set up a regional headquarters in Thailand.

14th October 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Fire at Bridgestone factory to have long-term effects

Early in September, a major fire broke out in Bridgestone’s Tochigi factory in Kuroiso City, 150 km north of Tokyo. The factory is located in a residential area and more than 5,000 local residents were evacuated, spending the night at public facilities as firefighters battled to control the blaze. Some members of the public suffered minor eye and throat irritation, but there were no reports of serious casualties.

At its height, 128 fire engines, over 1,000 firefighters and a firefighting helicopter were involved in tackling the blaze and, 24 hours after the fire began, it was under control, though still not totally extinguished. The Tochigi complex opened in 1971 and covers 510,000 square metres. 850 workers are employed at the plant, all of who were evacuated safely, and products include tyres for passenger cars, trucks and monorails. Around 6,700 tons of tyres a month were produced at the factory, or some 13 per cent of Bridgestone’s Japanese production.

One estimate was that, of 250,000 tyres stored near the plant, 150,000 had been destroyed, as well as extensive damage to the production facility itself. Even before the fire was completely extinguished, industry pundits and investors were debating the possible knock-on effects for the Japanese manufacturer. Mitsubishi was reported as saying that it expected stocks of Bridgestone tyres to be depleted after 16th September, at which date it would seek to source tyres from other manufacturers. On the other hand, Toyota said that it did not expect the fire to disrupt operations and the company would “get tyres from other production sites”.

Bridgestone has eight other tyre plants in Japan and the company said that overtime and weekend work would be necessary at these and other factories in southeast Asia. This may be easier said than done, as recently Bridgestone said it wanted to increase production capacity at plants in Japan (including Tochigi) and elsewhere in the world. These factories were said to be already running at full capacity and Bridgestone had earmarked $773 million to fund this expansion.

9th October 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Toyo doubles capacity

T&A talks to Martin Sutherland, general manager at Toyo in the UK, for an update on the company development.

Toyo is perhaps one of the most recognised mid-market brands in the UK. A series of targeted media campaigns both above and below the line have gone a long way to establishing the brand as the performance tyre of choice for many driving enthusiasts. In spite of the success of the UK operation it remains answerable to Toyo Reifen in Germany, so there is no UK managing director, the head of the chain of command in the UK is Martin Sutherland. Martin Sutherland has been with Toyo in the UK for the past 21 years, joining the company from Pirelli; so he knows a thing or two about the market in the UK.

Toyo has recently moved premises at Rushden. The re-location was only about 100 yards up the road, but the new premises have doubled the available storage space allowing Toyo to improve its stock capacity and as consequentially improve its service to its customers. Martin Sutherland says, “We have virtually doubled our stock capacity by moving to this unit. It offers us 70,000 square feet, which is twice the area of the old unit. However, we have managed to relocate without too great a disruption to our service or distribution. In fact, in the past we used to hold stock at the dockside and at one point had as many as 70 containers sitting in storage. All that stock is now held here, and we still have room to expand.

“One of the limitations we had on developing the business was the warehouse capacity and our restriction on turning stock around. That is no longer an issue and that allows us to offer a full width of patterns and sizes in all ranges. That gives us the potential to further build the business and we have the capacity here to grow considerably in all areas.”

The wholesale and distribution side of the tyre trade is going through a period of expansion and we could point to a number of companies investing considerable sums in new premises and expanding coverage. Toyo, though, is probably one of the few manufacturers talking so positively of expansion. What makes Toyo such a strong developer at this stage?

“There are probably a number of contributory factors,” says Martin Sutherland, “In the last fiscal year to 2003 we had our best ever results in terms of income and in terms of unit sales. In a market said to have declined by 2 per cent we saw an across the board increase of 12 per cent. That includes passenger car, 4×4, light truck and truck tyres. In high performance car tyres we saw a 37 per cent increase in sales.”

Winning volume and value in today’s tyre market is an uphill struggle, competing against established brands and in some sectors having to fend off price-led competition from the far east means that a 12 per cent increase is no mean feat. What do you attribute the success to?

“Without doubt,” says Martin Sutherland, “Much of our success is due to the quality of the marketing campaigns we have established over the years. Mike Rignall came to Toyo with the remit to redevelop our marketing and to increase brand awareness and he has done an excellent job in raising our profile in the trade and with the consumer. The way we have marketed the brand is now paying dividends for us. We established a policy of exclusivity for dealers and we have stuck to that policy and we have ensured that our availability is good.”

9th October 2003/by Tyrepress Editors