CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NOV 2018

PROFILE

Dries Lottering, manufacturing renewal executive at Bridgestone South Africa.

In the next three years, Bridgestone South Africa will spend in excess of R1-billion in the renewal of its South manufacturing footprint. Dries Lottering – who recently assumed the manufacturing renewal executive role to set the strategic direction and lead the capital investment projects – discusses major drivers behind the project and some of the trends in the tyre manufacturing industry. By Munesu Shoko . Leading Bridgestone’s renewal mission

Munesu Shoko [MS]: You have recently been appointed manufacturing renewal executive at Bridgestone SA. What does your role entail? Dries Lottering [DL]: It’s very much about renewing Bridgestone South Africa’s manufacturing footprint, setting the strategic direction and leading the capital investment mission into manufacturing renewal. We have two manufacturing facilities in the country, one in Brits and the other one in Port Elizabeth (PE). The Brits plant mainly produces the Radial product, including light truck radial tyres, truck and bus radial tyres, run flat radial tyres, as well as passenger radial tyres. Established in 1971, it was the first plant in South Africa to manufacture a run flat radial tyre back in 2005. Established way back in 1936, our PE plant produces mainly our Bias product, although it also manufactures some Radial products. Product range includes light truck bias tyres, truck and bus bias tyres, agric bias tyres, off the road tyres (mining and construction). It caters mainly for our agricultural portfolio, as well as the construction and mining businesses. It also manufactures flat rubber for conveyor belting. We also make our Pre-Cure Tread (PCT), which is basically used in our tyre retreading business. Our eight retread factories in South Africa and one in Namibia utilise the PCT that comes from our PE plant. This is a

very old plant with a total of 43 000 m² of factory space. It produces up to 800 tyres per day, ranging from 10 kg front tractor tyres to earthmoving tyres weighing up to 800 kg. MS: What are the major drivers behind the manufacturing renewal programme? DL: Firstly, it’s the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) business. We continue to enjoy exceptional relationships with OEMs, and have become the preferred tyre for most leading OEMs. South Africa is a good base for most OEMs to maintain local component sourcing. This is largely driven by government incentives such as the Automotive Investment Scheme (AIS) and the Automotive Production and Development Programme (APDP). APDP is a production incentive scheme for the motor industry aimed at promoting production volumes and added value in the automotive component industry, thus creating employment across the automotive value chain. AIS is an incentive designed to grow and develop the automotive sector through investment in new and/or replacement models and components that will increase plant production volumes, sustain employment and/ or strengthen the automotive value chain. So this results in

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