We are creating the foundations for long term growth. Our strategy involves using our leading tyre technology to focus on premium products and expanding our resources and modernising our existing facilities.
Our technological leadership and commitment to excellence in manufacturing is leading more and more vehicle manufacturers to equip their vehicles with Bridgestone tyres and this in turn will drive future replacement tyre sales.
Our major investments include:
- Construction of our state of the art Proving Ground inItaly, opened in 2004
- Expansion of our production capacity in Bilbao, Spain and Poznan, Poland
- Doubling the size of our central warehouse for imported tyres in Zeebrugge, Belgium
and opening two new European Logistics Centres, one in Madrid (Spain) and in one
Bor (Czech)
- Expanding retreading facilities from 3 (Spain and France) to 7 (UK, Germany and Denmark)
- Increasing the number of company-owned retail stores
- Construction of Europe’s first fully automated tyre plant to be opened in Hungary in 2008
- Construction of a new truck and bus tyre plant in Poland (from 2009)
These investments provide our people with real development opportunities. Our position in the market will be driven by ongoing technological and process developments and we continually seek the exceptional people required to continue this leadership.
Our strategy in action:
Number 1 investor in Poland
Recently Forbes business magazine ranked Bridgestone as the number one foreign investor in Poland in 2006. The total value of our investment in Poland during the year exceeded all other foreign companies.
We have extensive operations in Poland, employing 1,600 people. Our facilities include a state-of-the-art plant at Poznan manufacturing over 20,000 high performance passenger car tyres daily; a rubber tracks plant opened in Żarów in 2006, producing 26,000 tracks a year for the European construction industry; a Firestone industrial products plant at Wolsztyn supplying commercial vehicle manufacturers with advanced air springs; and a national sales and distribution company in Warsaw.
In 2007, we started construction of a new €200 million radial truck & bus tyre plant at Stargard Szczecinski, in north-west Poland, scheduled for completion in 2009. The 100-hectare site will have 750 employees and a capacity of 5,000 tyres a day by 2011.
Stargard production will supplement output from Bridgestone’s existing Bilbao, Spain, truck and bus tyre plant and help meet growing European demand for our commercial vehicle tyres. It will also enhance our self-sufficiency in the region and contribute to the creation of a strategic product supply system.
Logistics and Supply Chain Management – a competitive advantage
We are creating the ideal Bridgestone Europe distribution network to improve our logistics and supply chain efficiency, and support increasing cross border flows, the needs of new growing markets and comply with strict environmental regulations.
The project involves improving the physical network and all the business functions that work together to deliver a state of the art distribution network including warehousing, transportation, inventory management processes, organisation, performance measurement and IT and systems. The new network will ensure 24 hour delivery to the vast majority of our customers across Europe.
We are investing in state of the art systems and processes to secure competitive advantages gained from reduced costs to greater efficiency in inventory management and product delivery. Our investment also includes setting up an pan-European logistics and supply chain management organisation that will have an integrator role with Sales and Manufacturing.
