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.
Tyre manufacturers including Dunlop, Kumho, Vredestein, Pirelli, Yokohama, Toyo, Hankook, Maxsport and Hoosier will all exhibit at January’s Autosport/Aftermarket show. Others are expected to follow later. With the help of its exhibitor base, The Aftermarket Show will again focus on a number of tyre related issues, which include wheel balancing alignment and calibration, tyre disposal, tyre fitting and tyre safety.
A Hartlepool company has been prosecuted for storing and shredding over 120,000 tyres at an unlicensed recycling depot. Niramax Recycling and Manufacturing Ltd, was fined £10,000 at Hartlepool Magistrates’ court on Monday 20 November and ordered to pay costs of £5,000. The company has pleaded guilty to four tyre waste offences under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
The company was first contacted by the Environment Agency in 2002 and told that its site required a waste management licence to store and process waste tyres. However, by March 2006, Environment Agency officers found 128,000 tyres on site, causing fears of a fire risk.
(Akron/Tire Review) Tenneco Inc. announced the third expansion of production capacity and an increase in application coverage for its Monroe Quick-Strut assembly, a fully assembled replacement strut for late-model passenger vehicles. Tenneco has added a third Quick-Strut assembly production cell to its ride-control manufacturing facility in Paragould, Ark., to accommodate increased demand.
Korean tyre manufacturers have an uphill struggle on their hands if they want to improve their products’ brand recognition on a global scale, according to a recent Deutsche Bank report. Instead the analysts expect that any improvement should come through higher gross margins for their distribution subsidiaries. “In our view, the industry’s competitive landscape is not favourable for Korean tyre makers and it will be very difficult for them to improve their brand recognition in the highly competitive global tyre market,” the analysts commented.
Bartec Auto ID Ltd has acquired the tyre management business of Smartronics Ltd and is now supplying Michelin with the Smart-fleet system, used to manage Michelin’s “pence per kilometre” mileage contracts on over 10,000 buses in the UK. Bartec Auto ID Ltd already produces tyre pressure monitoring systems for the automotive industry, with an array of blue chip clients including Ford, Renault, Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar and many others. The latest acquisition is designed to enable Bartec to extend its scope to provide an enhanced service for managing fleet tyre maintenance across the commercial car, truck, bus and coach markets, according to the company.
Between 1985 and 1993, legendary French driver Alain Prost won four Formula One World Championships, (all of them using Goodyear tyres). Thirteen years later, the Prost name tops an international podium again with Alain’s son, Nicolas Prost, winning the Formula Three event at Montmelo, Spain last weekend, the penultimate round of the Spanish F3 Championship. Prost used Birmingham-built Dunlop tyres to carry him to this landmark first win.
The United Steelworkers has walked away from contract talks with Goodyear. The USW informed its members that its negotiating team has left Cincinnati – site of the Goodyear/USW master contract talks – and that no new negotiations had been scheduled. “We will go back when the company has something new to show us,” USW spokesman Wayne Ranick said in a Reuters report. Goodyear, for its part, said that its negotiating team would remain in Cincinnati and stood ready to continue bargaining for a new master contract.
So where do the two sides go from here? Deutsche Bank analysts reported that the USW sees Goodyear’s unilateral announcement of a plant closure as “setting an unacceptable precedent, and the bottom line is they aren’t going to budge on this issue.”
(Akron/Tire Review) While renewed negotiations with Goodyear have reportedly made little ground, the United Steelworkers continues to bang away at the tyremaker. Even as master contract negotiations restarted Monday after a six-week break, the USW took the company to task for its positions and announced a “nationwide day of action” against the company and its products.
Goodyear and the USW continue to meet in Cincinnati, restarting talks that ended when the Steelworkers struck 16 Goodyear plants in North America on 5 October. Both sides reported no progress had been made.
Early in November Tiger Wheels announced restructuring plans, which would see the company divest its entire shareholding in South African retailer Tiger Wheel & Tyre and wholesale tyre businesses in the UK and SA. These businesses would list on the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) as Tiger Automotive Limited (TAL). The move would spell the end of the interdependent relationship between the company’s German-based subsidiary and aluminium wheel producer ATS Beteiligungsgesellschaft (ATS) and the after-market retail and wholesale operations.
Despite reporting net sales of $198 million in the third quarter of 2006 and $548 million (up 19 per cent) in the first nine months, Amtel-Vredestein’s net loss doubled to $22 million between January and September. For the full year, the company projects net sales in excess of $800 million and EBITDA of approximately $100 million in 2006, according to the company. “A net loss of $10-$12 million is expected for the year — primarily as a result of increased investment costs and interest expenses as the company continues its Russian production, distribution and retail expansion programme,” official documents stated.
Usha Martin India and Gustav Wolf of Germany, who have jointly set up a 2,400 tonnes per annum (tpa) capacity steel cord manufacturing facility at Ranchi, India have decided to diversify into the manufacture of tyre bead wire. A 30,000 tpa capacity tyre bead manufacturing facility will be set up at Ranchi in two phases at an estimated investment of 400 million rupees (£4.667 million). The proposed 30,000 tpa tyre bead manufacturing facility will be set up with Gustav Wolf’s product know-how and process technology, according to Dr P. Bhattacharya, joint managing director of Usha Martin Ltd.
Elyo Italia recently purchased an LM6000-PD aeroderivative gas turbine generator and 12-year contractual service agreement (CSA) from GE Energy’s aeroderivative business for a combined heat and power (CHP) plant located within the Michelin tyre manufacturing facility in Cuneo, Italy.
The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., has announced that Yokohama Tyre Vietnam Inc., held the groundbreaking ceremony for its new industrial and mini-spare tyre plant at the planned construction site in the Vietnam/Singapore Industrial Park in Binh Duong Province, Vietnam, on 31 October 2006. A total of 90 people including those from Vietnam government offices, Japan-based manufacturers, banks and The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. participated in the ceremony. In his remarks, Tooru Kobayashi, director and corporate officer of The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., said:
Continental will hire a further 1500 people in Romania in the next three years. Thomas Sattelberger, Continental board member for human resources told local newspapers that the company plans to double production at its ContiTech unit in Timisoara and increase staff at its research centre in Sibiu to 300 employees, from almost 200 at present. Continental also announced plans to expand the Timisoara-based Continental Automotive Products plant, with its production capacity set to rise to 16 million tyres per year by 2008, from current levels of 12 million. Following the recruitment drive Continental, said to be the largest German investor in the local car parts industry, will have a total of 5,000 employees in Romania by 2010, compared with 3,500 at the moment.
Compomotive has launched a new 8 x 18 CXT motorsport wheel, available in 3, 4 & 5 lug fitments in a variety of offsets. The new wheel comes in white, silver, grey, gold, and black finishes and has seven double spokes for a sporty and stylish appearance
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