Manufacturing Archives - Page 184 of 257 - Tyrepress

Whether its raw materials, machinery, research and development or the latest manufacturing trends, this tag provides up-to-the-minute insights into the upstream part of the tyre industry.

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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.”

16th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Apollo Invests 200 Million Euros in Hungary Car Tyre Plant

Apollo Tyres Ltd and Hungarian authorities have entered an agreement to build a passenger car radial tyre production plant with a first phase annual capacity of 7 million units. Phase one of the project is expected to be completed in 18 months time at a cost of 200 million euros. Hungarian Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, and chairman & MD of Apollo, Onkar S Kanwar, met this morning, resulting in an “invitation” for Apollo to build the factory. The most likely site of the project is in Gyongyos outside Budapest city, Hungary.

The fact that Apollo describes the deal as an “invitation” and refers to the Hungarian Investment Agency as being “very helpful” suggests that public subsidies are involved. No details of this are currently available. However, when Hankook built its 500 million euro (£340 million) plant in Dunaujvaros, Hungary recently, it received approximately 20 per cent of the total investment in assistance. Roughly half of this was direct subsidy with the rest coming in the form of tax relief. An Apollo statement on the subject reports that the company has been evaluating various options for a European manufacturing hub to service the European and North American markets in a process that began about nine months back ago.

Commenting on the plans at a media briefing, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyursacy said: “I am well aware of Apollo Tyres as a leading tyre manufacturer with a global expansion plan. We are very keen to have Apollo set up its first green field manufacturing unit, outside India, in Hungary. Apollo will bring to Hungary its world class manufacturing expertise, technology and people management skills.”

Onkar S Kanwar added: “So far, this is the largest investment made by any Indian company in Hungary. This manufacturing facility in Gyongyos, Hungary, will become our hub to service our passenger car radial customers in Europe and North America. This is a key investment in our global strategy. The Hungarian Prime Minister, the Investment Agency and all officials associated with this decision have been immensely helpful throughout our negotiations…Apollo Tyres is currently in a growth mode.”

According to Apollo, the European investment is designed to compliment Apollo Tyres’ planned investment in India. Yesterday, the Indian manufacturer’s board of directors approved 2.2 billion rupees for the construction of a world class greenfield radial facility in the recently acquired 135 acres of land in the Oragadam Industrial Park, outside Chennai city in Tamil Nadu. This investment is in the first phase of the project, which is also to be completed in the next 18 months.

16th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

PTL Announces New Greenfield Facility

On January 15 the Board of Directors of PTL Enterprises took on record the company’s unaudited results for third quarter of 2007-8 and gave approval for a Rs 400 million (£5.2 million) green field project in Kerala. For the third quarter of the year, PTL Enterprises recorded a total income of Rs 67.1 million (£871,800) from Rs 38 million (£493,700) in the same quarter last year; an increase of nearly 77 per cent. Company net profit went up by more than 1000 per cent to Rs 23.6 million (£306,600) this quarter from Rs 2 million (£26,000) in Q3 FY 2006-07.

The Board of Directors approved a Rs 400 million investment for a greenfield facility manufacturing specialty tyres for the Indian market. The manufacturing unit will be established on land recently acquired by the company in Ernakulam, district of Kerala. The PTL facility is currently leased to Apollo Tyres.

15th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Apollo Announces Results, Projects

Gurgaon, India, January 15, 2008: The board of directors of Apollo Tyres Ltd, on January 15 announced the company’s unaudited results for the third quarter of the financial year 2007-08. The board also approved investments of Rs 3.6 billion (£46.8 million) for various green and brown field projects to be implemented in India.

Net sales for the companies India & overseas operations closed at Rs 12.4 billion (£161.1 million) up 14 per cent £140.3 million) from Rs 10.8 billion. Operating profit rose by 60 per cent, and net profit, at Rs 820 million (£10.7 million), increased by 165 per cent.

Commenting on the results, Onkar S Kanwar, Apollo chairman & managing director, said: “This is the kind of steady growth that we are looking to maintain in India, South Africa or any other market that we work in, in the near future. Our strength in manufacturing and people are assets, and Indian companies need to leverage these to ensure that we build Brand India as a quality manufacturer of products and services.”

15th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

MTNA Creates New Sales Region, Appoints New Managers

Marangoni Tread North America (MTNA) reports that it experienced record sales in 2007 and anticipates continued incremental growth. The company adds that increasing its salesperson to dealer ratio is viewed as a priority, and thus MTNA has created an additional US sales region, to give the company a total of four; Northeast, Southeast, Central, West. A new region sales manager, Doug Edwardsen, will be responsible for the newly established Central region. Edwardsen, a former Bandag Executive, has worked within the tyre and retreading industry in the US and Canada for over 25 years and possesses, reports MTNA, extensive experience in the distribution and development of fleet and dealer sales.

14th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Conti to Invest up to 4 Billion Euros Worldwide

Continental is considering spending as much as 4 billion euros on the acquisition of other companies. This news was given to the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport by company CEO Manfred Wennemer, who said that the company could “finance acquisitions of 3 to 4 billion euro through borrowing without problems.”

According to Wennemer, Conti is considering 30 to 40 candidate companies worldwide for takeover, and the company is looking at expanding its tyre business in the growing Asia region in particular. “In tyres, we are searching in Asia, mainly in China, for takeover targets.” Also specifically named as a focus was India. “As far as our tyre business is concerned, we want to enter the Indian market. It’s the last blank on the world map of our tyres business,” he said.

14th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Conti to Invest up to 4 Billion Euros Worldwide

Continental is considering spending as much as 4 billion euros on the acquisition of other companies. This news was given to the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport by company CEO Manfred Wennemer, who said that the company could “finance acquisitions of 3 to 4 billion euro through borrowing without problems.”

According to Wennemer, Conti is considering 30 to 40 candidate companies worldwide for takeover, and the company is looking at expanding its tyre business in the growing Asia region in particular. “In tyres, we are searching in Asia, mainly in China, for takeover targets.” Also specifically named as a focus was India. “As far as our tyre business is concerned, we want to enter the Indian market. It’s the last blank on the world map of our tyres business,” he said.

14th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Apollo Appoints Satish Agarwal as Chief of Manufacturing

Apollo Tyres Ltd has named Satish Agarwal as chief of manufacturing. Mr Agarwal joined the company in November 2000 as Unit Head for Apollo Tyres’ flagship manufacturing facility in Limda, Gujarat. According to the company, he has “transformed” this facility into India’s largest tyre manufacturing plant, during the past seven years. As a result, Apollo representatives describe the plant as having “one of the best manufacturing efficiencies in the industry.” In his new role Mr Satish Agarwal, will be based at the company’s headquarters in Gurgaon, outside New Delhi city. He will be responsible for all manufacturing operations and functions, including Quality, Corporate Engineering and Cost Optimisation, across plants in India, South Africa, Zimbabwe and other future facilities. He will be reporting directly to Mr Neeraj Kanwar, Joint MD and COO, Apollo Tyres Ltd.

11th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

B&J Launches Pro Team Competition

The launch of B&J Rocket’s new B&J Pro Team competition marks the latest step in an extensive realignment of the company. The B&J Pro Team competition, touches base with the users of B&J’s products in retreading shops worldwide. The Pro Team competition focuses on these teams and provides them with an online platform, where they can present themselves by uploading a team photo and participate in a unique contest that will end in May 2008 with the ‘Reifen 2008’ Fair in Essen, Germany.

10th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Conti to Build Rs 1 billion Automotive Plant in India

Continental AG is looking to boost its India operations and broaden the range of products on offer to customers in the region following its recent buyout of Siemens’ VDO unit. One particular new investment Conti is making in India is its planned automotive electronics plant and R&D facility in Bangalore, which will be established with an initial investment of Rs 1 billion (£12.9 million). Joint venture facilities operated in conjunction with Rico and Ashok Leyland will also attract fresh investment in the coming years.

“In the next decade one of the main focuses of the automotive industry will be the so-called affordable cars, especially in the growth markets like India and China. The production of cars within a price range of Rs 5 Lakh (about £6,500) will increase from current figure of 650,000 to approximately 1.1 million units by 2017. This is a 70 per cent increase. To cope with this demand we have to focus on solutions for the Indian market; people want safe, yet affordable cars,” said Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann, chief technology officer and board member of Continental AG. “Continental has developed strategies and products that are suited to these demands,” Dr. Neumann added.

10th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Techking Tires Expands its OTR Line-up

When visiting tyre shows in Asia or elsewhere in the world OTR tyres often dominate the the show landscape, giving the impression that almost every other manufacturer in the world is acting as an OTR tyre specialist and hoping to get a share of the grossly under-supplied market segment.

One such company that has managed to establish an intensive business relation with plenty of well-known players and even OEMs, within a very short period of time, is Techking Tires. And this separates Techking from some of the market “vagabonds” from the Far East that are here today and gone tomorrow and that change their focal business points as often as the market demands it. The number of different products and the number of available sizes which have been brought onto the market within just two years since the company started its business is impressive, to say the least. “I love the challenge,” says the founder of Techking Tires, Tech Wang, in an interview with Tyres & Accessories. The company hopes to reach another manufacturing milestone by the summer of 2008, when it is scheduled to launch 49 and even 51 OTR sizes.

9th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Ceat Tyres Implements SAP platform

According to a report in India’s Business Standard, Ceat Tyres has recently automated its business processes on the Software Application Protocol (SAP) platform. The SAP implementation covers the company’s entire office network, consisting of corporate office, two manufacturing plants, 34 regional offices, 28 RDCs, 125 clearing and forwarding agents, 3,500 dealers, a warehouse, 15 outsourcing locations, 8 RPD & Mixing locations.

Unlike most companies, who phase in new IT systems in stages, Ceat has opted to have all modules in its 180 plus locations go live at the same time. Ceat Tyres vice-president Arnab Banerjee explains the reason behind this decision: “If we look at the industry, most of our peers have used a phased approach. We were advised to follow it too. However, in this kind of implementation there is resistance to change and opposition to new systems and processes. So, we thought that instead of going through these issues in phases, let’s take the problem head-on and implement it in one go.” The project was implemented within a timeframe of eight months.

8th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Indian Manufacturers Expanding TBR, OTR Production

JK Tyre, India’s first TBR manufacturer, has responded to moves from other manufacturers to join this sector by boosting capacity at its facility in Mysore, southwest India, from 370,000 to 500,000 tyres per year, a target that will be met in 2009. Competition in this market sector is heating up in India: Apollo has already established a pilot TBR facility and during the coming quarter will consider the viability of further expansion. Ceat, who currently sources its TBR tyres from Pirelli factories and from manufacturers in China, have in recent months sought international technical assistance for the establishment of a domestic greenfield factory. According to the Hindu Business Line newspaper proposals for this project may be finalised in the next quarter. The paper adds that MRF has also announced plans to set up a TBR capacity.

7th January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Cooper Makes More Mexico JV Appointments

Cooper Tire & Rubber Company has reshuffled its finance team following the recently announced formation of its joint venture company in Mexico. Cooper Tire & Rubber Company de Mexico, is responsible for the marketing, sales and distribution of Cooper and Pneustone brands. Currently, the Pneustone brand is the house brand of Llanti Systems, a division of Grupo Dexel, a Mexico company with entities involved in transportation, energy distribution, auto parts, specialty equipment and tyre production.

The headquarters for Cooper Tire & Rubber Company de Mexico is in Querétaro, Mexico, the site of the headquarters for Grupo Dexel. A management team has been put into place under the leadership of Jim Smith, the newly appointed general director. Smith was formerly Cooper’s plant controller at the Texarkana, Arkansas, tyre manufacturing plant. Chris Barbara, formerly Cooper’s manager of sales training, will assist Smith as director of marketing. These two individuals, along with Hugo Ybarra, director of sales, will lead the core team primarily responsible for all activities associated with the new trading company.

3rd January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Toyo Changes Subsidiary Names

Over the Christmas break Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. Ltd. Changed the names of some of its second and third tier subsidiaries in the US. President and CEO Yoshio Kataoka announced the new names in a statement published on boxing day (26 December 2007). Toyo Tire International, Inc. will now be known as: Toyo Tire Holdings of Americas Inc.; While Toyo Tire (U.S.A.) Corp. has become Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp,; Nitto Tire North America Inc. was renamed Nitto Tire U.S.A. Inc.; and Toyo Tire North America, Inc. is now Toyo Tire North America Manufacturing Inc. All the name changes took effect on 1 January 2008.

3rd January 2008/by Tyrepress Editors