Senior management and certain functions of Bridgestone Americas’ (BSAM) Muscatine, Iowa-based Bridgestone Bandag Tire Solutions will relocate to the Nashville, Tenn., area, including BSAM’s headquarters facility in Nashville.
This move is part of an overall effort to restructure the way BSAM does business across its North American operations. The company said its goals are to become a more profitable and customer-focused business; to lower costs by eliminating duplication and inefficiencies; and to harness talent and expertise in a way that best serves the business.
“Change is always difficult, but relocating our headquarters team and certain functions to the Nashville area is the right business decision, and will align our resources and people in a way that will enable us to better serve our customers,” said Kurt Danielson, president of BBTS. “Our company has a rich heritage in Muscatine and I’m pleased that BBTS will be keeping certain business functions here and we will continue to be a part of this community.”
The BBTS functions that will remain in Muscatine include: equipment manufacturing, emergency road service, human resources, retread manufacturing management, manufacturing finance, information technology developers and support, retread engineering, retread technical services, and retread research and development. Approximately 220 BBTS employees will remain in Muscatine, the company said.
The following BBTS functions will be relocating to locations in the Nashville area: purchasing, marketing, finance, accounts payable, credit, business strategy & solutions group, customer service, legal, safety and members of the senior management team. As a result of the decision 32 BBTS workers will relocate to Nashville.
The transition is expected to conclude no later than June 30, 2011.
