The current Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire (BFNT) vice president of Supply, Planning & Sourcing (SP&S), Steve W. Shelton, is to assume leadership of a newly established company department – Logistics Supply Chain Management. Shelton will begin in this role as of January 1, 2009. The new group will be a part of Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO), the newly announced integrated Americas tyre business.
At the recent SEMA show in the US, battery tester and monitor manufacturer Argus Analyzers released its latest product, a unit the company refers to as a ‘clear, digital window into battery health’. Called the Battery Bug, the deep cycle monitor (DCM) enables a constant monitoring of batteries with results immediately visible to users. Argus Analyzers reports that use of the Battery Bug can extend battery life while also providing peace of mind.
On October 28 Michelin announced its plan to make operations in Italy more competitive. More than 200 million euros will be invested between now and 2013 to upgrade the company’s production facilities in the country, in order to make them more productive and specialised.
Production capacity will be significantly increased in Cuneo; following this expansion the Michelin plant will be the largest premium passenger car tyre production facility in Europe. Car tyre production will end at the company’s Stura workshop in Turin at the end of 2009. Semi-finished products will continue to be manufactured there, however, and the site’s logistics centre will operate following the transfer of the Vercelli warehouse.
Rema Tip Top is promoting a new solution for mobile truck tyre changing. The Unimont system features a newly developed telescopic slide, enabling the user to work outside a service truck or trailer, and mount and demount 16.5-to 24.5-inch tyres on 15 degree drop centre rims quickly.
All rims are generally clamped with their short section showing outwards. For bead breaking the wheel is turned with an electric motor, while the bead is demounted through the bead breaking cylinder in a one-step-operation.
An opening ceremony was held on October 24 to commemorate the completion of Yokohama Rubber’s new truck and bus radial factory in China. Approximately 280 invited guests attended the ceremony at the Suzhou Yokohama Tire factory in Suzhou city, including provincial tyre distributors, city administrators, along with Yokohama Rubber president Tadanobu Nagumo and managing corporate officer Seiji Takai.
Midland Specialty Tire Co., Ltd.’s decision to focus on its could off-road and industrial tyre business has positioned it to weather the current economic storm well, company representatives told Tyres & Accessories in Shanghai. Speaking to T&A during September’s CITExpo, Midland executive director, Surwin Huang explained how the Hong-Kong funded tyre factory based, which is based in mainland China has been dedicated to developing and producing tyres for agricultural implement, industrial and construction equipment since its establishment in 2003.
Surwin Huang has 32 years of experience in the tyre business which began at Armour Tyre in Xuzhou China, as this company’s sales/export manager. In 2003 Huang founded Midland Specialty Tire Co., Ltd., starting his own career in tyre manufacturing.
Bridgestone Corporation has released details of its “Mid-term Management Plan 2008” (MTP2008), which covers the period 2009 through 2013. The outline of the plan is as follows.
1. Basic Approach to MTP2008 Formulation
Bridgestone has formulated MTP2008, which covers the period 2009 through 2013, which is one year further on from MTP2007 (2008 to 2012). In making the revisions, Bridgestone updated and added initiatives in response to recent changes in the business environment, including changes in demand trends and the cost environment, in order to achieve the goals set in MTP2007.
On October 21 Cooper Tire & Rubber announced plans to conduct a capacity study of its United States manufacturing facilities over the following ninety days. The study will determine how to optimise manufacturing capacity in relation to developing market and customer needs, and the company says it will likely result in restructuring, including capacity consolidation or geographical shifts to production.
Today’s advanced cars require advanced batteries. It’s no longer possible to simply select a replacement battery based on size and type of vehicle alone because many other factors influence battery selection. Within a single vehicle model line-up a range of engine types, power output levels and “in-car” electrical accessories are available, and end user fitments add further uncertainty to the ‘what battery is right’ question – the demand placed upon a battery varies widely. Modern vehicles also operate in vastly differing conditions, from short but intense urban driving conditions to longer sustained driving, and regardless of driving conditions, extreme heat or cold have always been factors for consideration.
The November edition of Tyres & Accessories contains this year’s batteries feature, traditionally coverage of an important yet all too often overlooked automotive component. Yet in recent times the humble battery has stepped out of the shadows, gaining recognition as more than a means of powering up a car’s accessories. The clean, green battery is again being taken seriously as a provider of motive power, and major manufacturers are taking a keen interest in its potential. The latest to do so is the BMW Group, which in late November is revealing its new electrically powered Mini.
Grouptyre has expanded its Wales and South West tyre distribution service through the expansion of member company King David Tyres. The new additional distribution centres will be place in St. Clears, near Carmarthen, and St. Austell, Cornwall to provide multiple same-day deliveries within the South Wales M4 corridor and the valleys and throughout Cornwall.
King David Tyres is a family-owned business established over 30 years and operates retail and wholesale depots in various locations in South Wales, Devon and Cornwall. It serves a large territory incorporating Devon, Cornwall, Avon, Bristol, Somerset, Mid Wales and South Wales, as well as parts of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.
Production capacity at Michelin’s facilities in Romania will be expanded in order to make the country’s operations a strategic centre for the supply of tyres to Southeast Europe. Bucharest based daily newspaper Curierul National quotes Michelin co-managing partner Didier Miraton as stating “Romania is important to us and we intend to produce more, to turn the factories that we have there into a strategic point for South-Eastern Europe, through which we will provide tyres to the countries in the region.” Specific details of the intended capacity or the value of Michelin’s investment in the expansion were not given.
Columbian Tiszai Carbon, the Hungarian operation of US-based Columbian Chemicals Company, has completed a HUF7-billion (£20.4 million) expansion at its base in Tiszaújváros, northeast Hungary, CEO László Dobos told Hungarian news source MTI Econews.
The investment has increased the facility’s carbon black capacity by 50 per cent to about 100,000 tons a year, Dobos said. Demand for the product has particularly grown since tyre manufacturers have set up production bases in Hungary and elsewhere in the region, he added. Most of the plant’s carbon black goes to tyre makers, and the rest goes to the plastics and paint industries.
Apollo Tyres is said be calling upon the Indian government to impose anti-dumping duty upon cheap imported Chinese radials, as these products are hurting consumers. The Press Trust of India news agency has reported Apollo vice-chairman and joint managing director Neeraj Kanwar as saying “what China is doing is coming and dumping huge quantities of tyres because they have capacities lying idle, because they are not being able to export properly to America.
In spite of a less than rosy outlook for global raw metal sales, orders for mining tyres and other items of equipment continue unabated. And manufacturers of these items are wagering that, in the long term, demand for their products will remain strong.
“Everybody agrees that in the long term, five to ten years, the Chinese, the Indian and the Brazilians will grow and they will need more minerals and more energy,” Luc Minguet, president of Michelin North America’s Earthmover and Industrial Tires division told Reuters. “We have not seen any slowdown yet, but what could happen nobody knows.”
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