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.
In a groundbreaking move at Goodyear the company has agreed to giving the United Steelworkers of America a seat on the board of directors. In return, the union members will give up raises for three years, pay more for health care and accept smaller pensions. Those are key points in a contract agreement reached last week by the company and the United Steelworkers of America. Union members will vote on the contract by mid-September.
In Romania, the Authority for Privatisation and Management of State Ownership has sold its 69.984 per cent stake in local steel cord manufacturer S.C. Cord S.A. Buzau for a figure of around 10 million Euro. The purchaser was Pirelli.
VW is set to invest six billion Euro over the next five years to double capacity at its two Chinese joint venture plants to 1.6 million vehicles a year. The company is also looking for new manufacturing sites in China. The initial one billion Euro investment in the factory at Changchun will be funded entirely from revenues from the Chinese market.
An article in Asia Times quotes Eric Jugier, chairman of Michelin (China) Investment Co. Ltd., as saying that the company still considers China “an ideal investment destination for the world manufacturing industry”. He is also quoted as saying that Michelin plans to turn its operations in mainland China “into its biggest manufacturing base in the world”.
In North America, Ford and GM are encouraging their suppliers to produce more parts in China, not only to support locally-made vehicles, but to enable them to match a “world price”, based on a Chinese price. The companies offer a deal where, if a supplier builds a factory in China, it can sell to Ford and GM factories in North America. GM Europe denied that it was pressurising suppliers to re-locate, although if a supplier asked GM how he could cut costs, he might be advised to move to China or Korea.
The new Pirelli North America Tyre factory at Rome, Georgia has been named as the recipient of the 2003 Robots & Vision User Recognition Award for its MIRS robotic tyre manufacturing process. Pirelli is the fourth winner of the award, which is presented every two years at the International Robots & Vision Show and Conference.
The cornerstone has been laid for Peugeot Citroen’s new factory in Trnava, Slovakia. Vehicle production should begin in 2006, with an annual capacity of 300,000 units, employing 3,500 staff. The project represents an investment of 700 million Euros and is part of PSA’s strategy to move manufacturing closer to expanding markets. In March this year, PSA’s market share in the six Central European countries of Croatia, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia was 13.6 per cent, compared to five per cent five years earlier.
Hankook Tire Manufacturing Co. will be supplying Ford with tires for the F-150. “Supply to the world’s top auto maker should enhance the brand recognition of Hankook Tire in the global market,” said Cho Choong-Hwan, Hankook’s top executive. Hankook Tire America Corp. is expected to release more details on this domestic OE contract with Ford soon.
Auto Shanghai 2003, the 10th International Automobile and Manufacturing Exhibition, proved to be a great success, with 730 exhibitors from 23 countries and a show area of 81,000 square metres. The event ran from 21st to 25th April and attracted almost 200,000 visitors to the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. The 200 or so exhibitors from the automotive supply industry included a group of 50 companies from Germany. The show was held against a background of rising numbers of cases of SARS and in view of this problem, the organisers took a number of precautionary measures. Shanghai’s municipal authorities took the decision to close the show three days early in order to avoid the expected floods of visitors from other regions of China over the weekend. In general, this was welcomed by exhibitors, many of whom said that the visitor response had been so positive that they had achieved their trade fair objectives, despite the early closure.
Goodyear’s Eagle F1 GS-D3 “world tire” won praise just outside the company’s hometown last week, when company representatives accepted a NorTech Innovation Award for the unique, global tire.
Reports in the Indian press suggest that Michelin has embarked on a tyre market analysis to determine whether it is worthwhile investing in a manufacturing facility in India. In 2000, Michelin was said to be considering an investment of Rupees 500 crore (around 90.5 million Euros) in a manufacturing facility, but the scheme fell through due to the low level of radialisation in the market.
Bridgestone Corporation announced that it has concluded its first-ever contract to supply tyres to Airbus S.A.S. The contract pertains to tyres for the ultra-advanced A380, a next-generation super jumbo airliner. Bridgestone will begin supplying tyres to Airbus for the nose and main landing gear of the A380 on the fourth quarter of 2005. The A380 Airbus, which will carry 555 passengers, is in the early stages of manufacturing. Airbus’s plans call for the plane to go into commercial service in early 2006.
Bridgestone is to invest 12.6 billion Thai Baht (256.79 m Euros) to raise output in Thailand of tyres, cord and carbon black, in order to meet expected rising global demand. Steel cord production at the Chon Buri factory will triple to 28,000 tonnes by 2005 and work will start on building a tyre factory there next April, producing 900,000 radial truck and bus tyres in the second half of the year. The Bridgestone group in Thailand consists of seven companies and the latest investments will see the local workforce grow from the present 3,600 to 5,500.
Sumitomo Rubber Industries has revealed details of its new tyre production system, called Taiyo (“the sun”). It is a fully automatic system, integrating all the production process, from component preparation to tyre curing, into one cell. The process is very flexible and, says SRI, produces a more uniform tyre. The Taiyo system is in production at SRI’s Nagoya plant and 1,000 tyres of eight different sizes can be produced daily.
Up until now, Nokian Tyres’ contract manufacturing has mainly been focused on Nordman branded winter tyres. The Finnish tyre maker now plans to increase summer tyre production as well in the Russian joint venture factory of Voronez, attaining an annual capacity of two million tyres in 2004 and also plans to introduce a new summer tyre brand at the year-end.
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