InfraStructures - October 2011 - Bridgestone to Increase Tire Production at its U.S. Plants

Bridgestone to Increase
Tire Production at its U.S. Plants

Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO) announced recently it will invest $36.6 million in its Warren County, Tennessee, plant to increase production capacity by an additional 900 truck and bus tires per day.

The investment is part of a comprehensive expansion in U.S. manufacturing operations announced previously by Bridgestone Americas, Inc. (BSAM), BATO’s parent company. To meet the growing global demand for off-road radial tires, the company announced it will build a new off-road radial plant in Aiken County, South Carolina. It also announced a substantial increase in production capacity at its existing passenger and light truck tire plant in Aiken County. All together, these projects combined with the new investments in the Warren County plant represent an investment of more than $1.2 billion in Bridgestone Americas’ U.S. manufacturing operations.

In addition, Bridgestone Metalpha U.S.A., Inc. (BMU), a subsidiary of Bridgestone Corporation and an affiliate of BATO, announced that its Clarksville, Tennessee, plant will begin producing the off-road radial steel cord needed for the tires to be produced at the new Aiken County plant. The associated $75 million investment will expand the plant’s size by 11,400 m2.

Site preparation and construction in Warren County will begin in the second quarter of 2012. Construction is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2012, and the manufacturing equipment will begin to be installed in the fourth quarter of the same year. The additional production is expected to commence at the end of the first quarter of 2013, reaching full production in the fourth quarter of that year.

The Warren County facility, which began operations in 1990, earned LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council in 2008, becoming the first tire plant in the world to do so. LEED is awarded internationally to buildings for excellent energy and water efficiency, indoor environmental quality and resource stewardship. It is rarely awarded to existing manufacturing sites. Warren County along with BATO’s Aiken County plants are the first two – and so far only – LEED-certified tire plants in the world.

Source: Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations