Bridgestone Americas recently hosted industry journalists for an in-depth tour of its expanded 1.8-million-square-foot passenger/light truck tire plant in Aiken County, South Carolina.
The additional 474,000 square feet of production and warehouse space joins the previously announced 266,000-square-foot expansion of the plant in July of this year.
The facility, which produced its first tire in 1998, currently is manufacturing 25,200 tires daily in 32 sizes, according to John Stewart, plant manager. By 2016, the plant will produce 37,750 tires daily in 61 sizes.
In addition, some 650,000 tires are stored in the integral warehouse facility. Sixty-five percent of the tires produced at the plant are headed to OEMs, while the remainder end up at dealers and other retailers.
Mike Martini, president of OE consumer tires, told the journalists, “We’re working on vehicles 4-5-6 years out, and the expansion here will help address capacity needs.”
Tires produced for carmakers are not created in a vacuum, he added, and that adds to the complexity and technology. “We’re concerned what the end-user says, including the wear and safety patterns.”
During the one-day program, the company also reviewed status and progress of the construction of its new 1.85-million-square-foot off-road radial OTR tire manufacturing facility, being constructed next door on a greenfield site in Graniteville, S.C.
Previously, large OTR tires (49- through 63-inch) had been produced exclusively at Bridgestone’s Shimonoseki and Kitakyushu plants in Japan or the tiremaker’s OTR plant in Australia, and shipped to North America as needed. 
The company believes it can respond better to customer needs and growing global demand by installing OTR production technologies in the new U.S. plant. The Bridgestone Group also will have multiple options for future expansions, improving its ability to rapidly respond to market changes and customer requirements.
The new state-of-the-art plant will manufacture 49-, 51-, 57- and monster 63-inch radials for customers in the U.S., Canada and South America. According to Bridgestone, demand for off-road radial tires is steadily increasing as the need for mineral resources grows due to rapid economic expansion across the globe.
With the facility, Bridgestone said, “We’ll be even more responsive to our ‘boss,’ the man driving the vehicle all day long. We care what he thinks about the tire’s feel and performance.”
Two such customers are Canadian firms Suncor Energy and Canadian National in Ft. McMurray.
When fully completed, these three projects will total a $1.2 billion investment and will increase Bridgestone Americas’ workforce in Aiken County by more than 850 people, excluding contractors.
