Michelin North America Expects to Close Tire Manufacturing Plant in Nevada

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Inc.; Houston, Texas). Michelin North America (Reno, Nevada) announced recently that it expects to permanently close its 200,000 sqft tire manufacturing plant located in Reno, Nevada, in May 2002. The company will relocate equipment to other existing plants. The plant primarily served the Western U.S. and produced passenger tires since 1997.

The closing of the plant comes as a shock to some, because Michelin had been evaluating a $30 million dollar expansion of the C3M Process to increase the plant's production to full capacity. Michelin North America demonstrated their proprietary C3M Process first at the Greenville plant and the Reno plant was the second domestic venture. The C3M Process promises an 85 percent reduction in overall manufacturing time. The process is a robotic system that eliminates upstream component manufacturing and assembly in favor of complete tire building on a toroidal drum.