Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has announced plans to build a new facility in Luxembourg that utilizes an innovative production process to meet growing customer and consumer demand for premium tires.
Named Mercury, the facility will be the first to use a proprietary process that features highly-automated, interconnected workstations and uses additive manufacturing technologies to efficiently produce premium tires in small-batch quantities on-demand for replacement and original equipment customers.
“Mercury addresses the increasing complexity in the tire industry as the number of vehicle models and options available to consumers continues to proliferate,” said, Richard J. Kramer, CEO and president. “It gives us the capability to increase our speed and flexibility to meet the growing demand for small volumes of high-margin, premium Goodyear tires and to deliver them to customers on demand, faster than ever.”
The new facility, set to open in 2019, is in close proximity to Goodyear’s Luxembourg innovation center and tire proving grounds. The company is investing $77 million in the facility, which will produce approximately 500,000 tires annually and create approximately 70 new, full-time positions.
