Commercial grade industrial and mining tyre supplier Supergrip announced on October 21 it has selected Amerityre Corporation to manufacture and supply a new range of long wearing flat-proof polyurethane tyres. The new tyres, which will be sold under the Supergrip brand name, will be produced in multiple sizes for a variety of commercial applications, and manufactured using the proprietary polyurethane formulations developed by Amerityre.
General Motors, the owner of European brands Vauxhall and Opel, is considering temporarily halting production at all its European plants, according to press reports. Speaking to Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung German union official Rainer Einenkel said GM was mulling a plant shutdown for the two last weeks in November and from December 15 until the end of the year. GM has previously announced that it wants to reduce output by 40,000 vehicles by the end of the year. The group’s European boss, Carl-Peter Forster, told AFP sales of its main models in Europe had fallen by 30 per cent.
Goodyear representatives are reported to have given news of another temporary production shutdown at the company’s Gadsden, Alabama factory. This latest shutdown, announced October 15, will be the third to take place since August.
According to local newspaper the Gadsden Times, plant communications manager Jackie Brehm Edmondson said the factory will cease production at 1pm on October 25 and resume production at 1am on November 2. Employees were notified of the shutdown on October 13.
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.
According to a recently released report, tyre output in China enjoyed a growth rate of 20 per cent per annum between the years 2002 and 2007, with annual growth in radial output an even higher 33 per cent. It is expected, states the report, that tyre output will reach 630 million units per annum by 2010, with radial production accounting for 530 million units.
A new manufacturing process has led to Varta batteries with greatly improved cold starting energy, a longer working life and increased reliability. This new process involves the manufacture of the battery’s positive grid, and the manufacturer of the Varta range, Johnson Controls, reports that the implementation of this technology, which it calls PowerFrame, ensures consistent and stable positive grid quality at all times. PowerFrame technology has now been applied to the company’s Silver, Blue and Black Dynamic battery ranges.
Titan International has announced Ernest Rodia will retire as the company’s chief operating officer on October 31, 2008. Rodia came to Titan in 2005 after a 37-year career with Goodyear Tire and Rubber, where he retired as vice president of global engineering and manufacturing technology.
“Ernie led Titan’s team on the development of our super giant radial tyres. This project was an unbelievable task that was completed in record time,” said Titan chairman and CEO Maurice M. Taylor Jr. “Fortunately, he will stay on with Titan as a consultant as we go forward. Production has begun on the super giant tyres, so now Ernie can move into a supervisory role and be available to work with me on new special projects.
Shandong Province, China based nano precipitated calcium carbonate (NPCC) manufacturer ShengdaTech announced on October 3 that a Chinese tyre manufacturer has issued purchase order requesting ShengdaTech supply its ongoing tyre production requirements. This order was made, says ShengdaTech, after the company successfully completed product testing of its NPCC in a major tyre manufacturer’s production process. The name of the tyre company involved in the testing or the company that has issued the purchase order has not been disclosed.
Worsening economic conditions in the US are continuing to affect tyre manufacturers. Goodyear has announced yet another one-week partial shutdown of its Topeka, Kansas factory. Truck radial production will be halted for the week beginning October 13, leaving around 500 workers idled without pay. A spokesperson for the employees’ union, the United Steelworkers, said the shutdown is taking place due to an overabundance of unsold truck tyres in Goodyear’s inventory.
Cooper Tire’s Albany factory is back in production and its 1,000 employees working again, the supply of raw materials having resumed several weeks after Hurricane Ike created havoc amongst the region’s industry. “This is a situation that a lot of companies are going through,” commented Cooper Tire vice president of Branding and Communications Pat Brown. “We are trying to make the impact as minimal as possible.”
Goodyear Lastikleri, the Turkish unit of Goodyear Tire & Rubber, is temporarily stopping production at its Adapazarý and Ýzmit factories in the country’s northwest. The company closed these facilities on October 3, and they will remain for eight days, Goodyear Lastikleri said in a filing with the Istanbul Stock Exchange on September 26. A slump in domestic and export orders was the reason given for this decision.
Despite previous reports of factory closures due to raw material supply problems, Goodyear announced on October 3 that it has “no concerns” in this area as its synthetic rubber facilities have returned to operation. The company adds that a return to production was achieved quickly due to the effectiveness of the its Business Continuity efforts. The Goodyear synthetic rubber plants in Beaumont, and Houston, Texas had been closed in advance of Hurricane Ike making landfall on September 13.
Despite taking hits from recent Gulf Coast hurricanes, Goodyear says it has no concerns about raw material supplies for its tire production. The tyremaker said its synthetic rubber plants “returned to operation quickly due to the effectiveness of the company’s business continuity efforts.”
The plants in Beaumont and Houston, Texas, were closed in advance of Hurricane Ike making landfall on Sept. 13. “The short production interruption and minimal business impact resulted from our comprehensive business continuity process, which was enacted in advance of the hurricane’s landfall,” Goodyear said. “In addition, contingencies were put in place to obtain critical raw materials for the company’s tire manufacturing facilities.”
“We’re extremely pleased by the way our Business Continuity process works, and how we were able to quickly get our operations running after the hurricane,” said Bob Keegan, chairman and CEO. “We see the management of this process as a real competitive advantage in these types of circumstances.” (Tire Review/Akron)
Goodyear’s tyre factory in Gadsden, Alabama, has again been shut down of a week due to a shortage of raw materials and to reduce the company’s overall tyre production, company officials announced on September 29. This is the second such recent occurrence for the Gadsden plant; between August 16 and September 2 the facility was closed for an ‘inventory adjustment’.
Raw material shortages and ‘soft demand’ in the North American market are the factors behind Cooper Tire & Rubber’s October 1 announcement that it would ‘adjust’ production facilities at its US facilities. The company says hurricanes in the Gulf Coast areas have affected its suppliers’ ability to provide sufficient raw materials to maintain full production at all US facilities, and thus materials will be directed to those plants currently producing items demanded by customers.
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