Well, it seems to be a growing niche target market:
Michelin North America Expects to Close Tire Manufacturing Plant in Nevada
HOUSTON--March 25, 2002--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
plantbs 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.
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