South African Diversified company Murray & Roberts has a new Chief Executive, Brian Bruce. In an interview Bruce announced that M & R is again in discussions with “some players” to sell subsidiary company Alloy Wheels International (AWI). The producer of oe aluminium wheels closed a factory in Cardiff (Wales) a few weeks ago.
The American tyre manufacturer plans to close one of its oldest factories, Pneumaticos Goodyear SA, which is located near Buenos Aires. Goodyear has operated a sales office in Argentina since 1915, making it one of the company’s oldest subsidiaries outside the USA.
The Siam cement Group is to reduce its shareholding in the Michelin Siam Group from 50 per cent to 40 in order to concentrate on its core business. The shares will be purchased by Michelin, the other partner in the joint venture, giving it a 60 per cent stake. Michelin Siam has three factories in Thailand, plus a tyre mould making plant and a steel cord factory. The company makes Michelin brand tyres for vehicles from motorcycles to aircraft.
Continental has announced it will be acquiring a 15% share in Indian tyre manufacturer, Apollo Tyres. According to Indian media sources, the acquisition will enable Continental to build up a technological relationship with the Indian tyre market and there are plans to develop a truck tyre factory on a greenfield site in Pune. At the moment, neither Continental or Apollo Tyres have confirmed the partnership.
Vredestein’s home town, Enschede, was devastated by the recent explosion in a fireworks factory and subsequent fire. One Vredestein employee, his wife and one child are missing, another employee lost two children and his in-laws. 14 employees lost their houses and another 29 were damaged. Throughout the fire, the Vredestein voluntary fire brigade was active and helped the official firefighters. Obviously tyre production was affected, but was soon back to normal.
Since its acquisition of what was Euzkadi in 1998, Continental General Tire is the leading tyre manufacturer in Mexico. Recently, ContiTech began construction on a factory in San Luis Potosi to make technical products for the Nafta region and Continental Teves intends to build a factory at Silao in Mexico to manufacture wheel revolution sensors.
The future of Nissan’s plant at Sunderland, UK will be decided by the company in. It hinges on whether the plant is chosen to build the new Micra, but Chief Operating Officer and President Carlos Ghosn has hinted that costs may force the group to make the car in France or Spain.
On February 15th, Bridgestone opened its fourth plant in Japan devoted to the production of diversified products such as high performance functional films and precision components of rubber and plastic. The factory, sited in Iwata, covers an area of 17.3 hectares, of which 2.3 hectares are under cover, and employs 130. It is Bridgestone’s 15th factory in Japan.
Marangoni Tyre plans to invest US$ 200 million to build a second tyre factory in Europe with a capacity of 4.5 million car and SUV tyres a year.
A. T. Kearney and the weekly magazine Produktion held a competition for “the best factory of the year”. 80 plants were nominated and the winner of the first prize for “outstanding manufacturing processes” was the Conti Teves factory in Rheinböllen, which produces brake components.
A tyre expert hired by Bridgestone/Firestone has identified cracks in the belt skim – the rubber compound used to bond steel belts – as the cause of problems with some Firestone tyres. However, another tyre consultant, Rex Grogan, said that he told the company back in April 1999 that he had found the same problem. He blamed the use of inexperienced personnel working at the Decatur plant during a labour dispute.
The Italian Goodyear factory should close in March. EU officials have criticized the American company for not considering the rights of the employees involved.
Ford has announced that car production will end at its Dagenham plant by 2002, with the loss of 1,900 jobs. Dagenham is Ford’s largest UK factory, where the Fiesta and Courier vans are built. Ford also announced that 500 new jobs would be created at Dagenham over an unspecified period in the engine manufacturing operations.
Hayes Lemmerz International, the world’s largest wheel manufacturer, plans to invest 23 million US dollars with the objective of quadrupling the annual capacity of the Mexican aluminium wheel factory in Chihuahua to 1.2 million units by the year 2001.
The foundation stone for a MIRS-factory was laid in the presence of Ministerpräsident Koch from the area of Hessen/Germany. Pirelli is investing 100 million Euro to produce about 1.5 million ultra-high-performance tyres by the year 2005. MIRS will create 200 more jobs. In addition to its own investment, Pirelli will receive an additional government grant of about 15 million Euro for meeting special environmental requirements.
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