The Goodyear Canada Inc. OTR Tire Centre in North Bay is moving into a new 80,000-square foot manufacturing facility in the city’s Gateway Industrial Park.
The plant serves the mining, forestry and construction industries across Canada and is Goodyear’s only off road tire retread facility in the country. The new building, which is being leased by Goodyear, represents an investment of $8.5 million and sits on the last piece of property in a 12-hectare industrial park marketed through Air Base Property Corp for $1 an acre.
The new building is being designed in accordance with lean manufacturing principles to optimize productivity and efficiency, explained Gary Blake, Goodyear’s Lean Six Sigma Champion.
"The whole idea of a lean layout is to make sure that production flows smoothly through the building. Everything in the plant is just in time to the next station. You only move material to the next work station when it’s needed."
Lean layouts are designed to optimize productivity and efficiency.
Goodyear’s former plant, a 47,000-square foot facility on Gormanville Road, was cramped and not conducive to a smooth production flow, said business centre manager Glenn Bennett.
Manufacturing equipment was added as volume increased over the years and it wasn’t always possible to install it in such a way to achieve optimum efficiency, so "there was an awful lot of criss-crossing and back-tracking," said Bennett.
Three shifts
The Goodyear OTR Centre has 48 employees and operates three shifts Monday through Friday. Business has slowed marginally as a result of the current recession, but not enough to affect the plant’s workforce.
"I wouldn’t say we’re recession-proof, but we’re not as sensitive to a downturn because it’s a lower cost product," observed Bennett.
The cost of retreading an OTR tire is approximately 65 per cent of the cost of a new tire and there is virtually no difference between the two in terms of quality or hours of service, said Bennett. On average, an OTR tire can be retreaded three times, depending on its condition.
According to the Tire Retreading Information Bureau, approximately 18.6 million retreaded tires were sold in North America in 2006, accounting for $3 billion in sales.
The Goodyear OTR Centre operates a pick up and delivery service from Moncton to Winnipeg and uses contractors in the rest of the country to pick up and deliver tires to and from Goodyear depots.
Tires are typically turned around in 14 days and, in some cases, as few as seven days. The company’s Northern Ontario dealer, Royal Tire, is one of approximately 200 Goodyear OTR Centre dealers across the country.
The new building will be equipped with a state-of-the-art dust collection system and shredder for recycling rubber shavings. All of the other machinery and equipment will come from the former plant.
The move to the new building in March will interrupt production for one week.
