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COMPANY PROFILE
Factory Manager Sean Parry checking the retread line
Michelin Completes Phase One of £20m Stoke-on-Trent
Site Investment
systems and automatic loading machines are being installed as well as four new automatic extruders at the cost of £250,000 each, which will apply liaison rubber and sidewall compound.
Further improvements include the removal of the need for solution, thereby also making the plant more environmentally friendly.
The investment will allow
project but a strategic one, which will allow the company
to produce the same number of tyres quicker and with less people.
Says Parry; “All of the machines being installed here are present in other Michelin plants but this is the first time all this technology has been combined in one facility. When it’s finished this will be the best retread plant in Europe”.
Michelin’s Remix facility at Stoke-on Trent
Michelin recently completed phase one of a £20 million investment to upgrade machinery at the company’s Remix plant at Stoke-on-Trent, UK. To celebrate the event, the plant was visited by the UK’s Business Minister, Mark Prisk, who saw the first four tyres roll off the new production line. Prisk’s presence is explained by the fact that the funding for the
total £20 million investment, made a vital difference in the return on investment for Michelin, who had not ruled out making their investment at one of the company’s four other retread plants across Europe instead.
Prisk himself commented; “I am delighted that Michelin is investing in the Stoke plant and making it into a world-leading
The team with the first remix retread off the new production line
modernisation of the factory had been supported by the UK Government under the Grant for Business Investment Scheme. It is understood that the government grant, believed to be about £3 million of the
modern manufacturing facility. Supported by Government, this investment is helping to protect over 400 skilled jobs.”
The key improvements being made in the plant are in the area of automisation. Conveyor
16 Retreading Business
Michelin to retread Michelin Durable Technology tyres. According to Factory Manager Sean Parry existing machines in the plant won’t allow the rebuilding of these tyres as they need higher temperature and pressures during curing. The company is therefore installing a number of new presses specifically for MDT tyres. Although this will effectively increase the capacity of the plant, Parry emphases that the investment is not a capacity
According to Parry, the first phase of the investment project was to upgrade one of the company’s two production lines. Now this has been completed the plan is now to ramp up production to a level where the company will be able to cease production on the other line so it too can be upgraded. The project is scheduled to be completed by July 2013.