DUDELANGE, Luxembourg — Goodyear has christened production at a passenger tire plant in Dudelange, where the company is employing a proprietary, small-batch manufacturing process that it claims can turn out tires four times faster than conventional production methods.
Goodyear broke ground on the factory in September 2017, saying at that time the $77 million investment would advance its "connected business model, which aligns all of our assets — from the production floor to consumers who choose Goodyear online and at retail."
Goodyear said at that time it expected the plant to be on stream by 2019. It did not comment on why the project took longer than expected to be fully operational.
Developed internally by Goodyear engineers, the 4.0 digital manufacturing process — dubbed "Mercury" — anticipates and responds to increasing complexity in the tire industry, the company said, and represents an effort to develop and produce premium ultra-high-performance tires efficiently in in small-batch quantities on-demand for both replacement and original equipment customers.
"We needed to design this integrated product and process to deliver for the changing needs of the market," Chris Helsel, senior vice president, Global Operations and chief technology officer, said.
"By doing so, we are enabling a new business model to serve our customers and consumers in this important and increasingly complex part of the market," he said "The new process will give us a competitive advantage, targeting world-class quality and responsiveness."