Bridgestone to cut costs by $450 million this year

TOKYO — Bridgestone Corp. aims to reduce costs by $450 million this year through various cost-saving measures across its global operations, the company disclosed in its half-year financial results.

In the first half of the year, Bridgestone made moves to realize $235 million in savings.

Among other steps, Bridgestone aims to reduce fixed costs in sales, production and inventory, "in line with the number of units sold." That includes plans to optimize production capacity mainly for truck and bus tires in North America and Europe, the tire maker added.

The process will involve shortening the number of operating days and suspending some process activities to improve the profitability of the truck/bus tire business.

Word of Bridgestone's measures coincides with a more optimistic outlook for truck/bus tire shipments in the U.S. from the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association. Bridgestone operates a pair of factories in the U.S. dedicated to truck/bus tires, in LaVergne and Morrison, Tenn.

As part of the initiative, Bridgestone also aims to "review, reduce and optimize" production-related investments from the second half of 2024 and into 2025.

Other planned moves will include cost-reductions in global procurement; transformation of logistics globally; employment of the Bridgestone Commonality Modularity Architecture (BCMA) — which is designed to modularize complex tire components in three sections: carcass, belt and tread — and a shift to being "green and smart" by reducing energy consumption and improving productivity by promoting automation.

To that end, Bridgestone said it expected to "reduce assets" through inventory reduction, contributing a total of $353 million globally for the full year.

The company then will "establish a lean system structure for 2025," it added.