INDUSTRY NEWS

Aerial view of the Michelin's US5 tire manufacturing facility in Lexington

Built in 1981, Michelin's US5 tire manufacturing facility in Lexington, South Carolina is, at 2.5 million square feet, one of the largest in the world. 

The plant, which produces primarily touring and high performance passenger car tires, employs over 1,330 people, and like every other Michelin plant the world over, is a non-union facility.

Plant Manager Raul Fernandez explains that it's "to their advantage to create an environment where a union isn't required", and that during the recent economic downturn, not a single employee was laid off.  Employees benefit from a variety of training and mentoring programs, and says Fernandez, "flexibility is their gift to us".
Like all of Michelin's North American plants, US5 has achieved ISO 14001 certification for excellence in environmental management. According to Fernandez, every Michelin plant adheres to the same standards globally, regardless of lower requirements.

Primacy MXM4 Tire

More than one member of our media tour group commented on the unexpected cleanliness of the facility. Although noisy (this is after all, a factory), there's none of the overpowering smell of burnt rubber one might expect. Painted floors are clean and shiny. There's a fleet of large tricycles with carrier bins for tools - the plant is so large that employees ride from one end to the other.

Each development stage down the line has a glass-enclosed "bird house" for meetings on quality control and progress charts.

There are over 200 ingredients that go into the making of a tire, from vulcanizing agents, carbon black, rubber silica and sulphur to steel cords and fabric ply.

In the initial stages, the wide black bands rotating on the "tire-building drums" aren't yet recognizable as tires. Called "carcasses", the barrel-shaped tubes piled on rolling trollies are about the size of a large waste-basket. They're made up of several layers: a thin airtight sheet of rubber which acts as an inner tube and casing layers containing fabric. Threads of fabric ply can be seen woven through the surface.

A carpet of rubber lies in folds on a conveyor belt, slowly feeding through an extrusion machine, where it's shaped, moulded and ready to be applied to the exterior surface of the waiting carcasses.
 

Tire curing machine

During the next stage, the carcass is transformed into a recognizable tire shape. As it spins on the tire-building drum, bead wire is added to the ends, and the casing is folded to hold it in place. The flexible ends of the drum are brought inwards, forcing the centre of the carcass up and out. At this point, they look like Formula One tires - with deep grooves but no tread as yet.

Tires move above our heads suspended from hooks, as we make our way to the curing stage. Huge moulds open up like petals on a flower, the tire is dropped in and they close up, baking the tread pattern into the tire's surface.

Finished tires go through a battery of visual and automated quality inspection steps before the markings and labels are added. Depending on the product, between 8 and 24 hours go by to transform raw material into a finished tire.