Michelin North America, Inc. has recently announced the advancement of its plans to build a distribution centre near Spartanburg, South Carolina (SC) in the US. The facility will represent a combined investment of US$270 million and approximately 350 jobs.
Construction of the facility is expected to start later this year. The first phase of the distribution centre is set to open in late 2017, with full completion expected in early 2019. The Spartanburg County (SC) Council recently provided final approval of a “fee in lieu of taxes” agreement, a final key step enabling the project to move forward.
The planned facility will consist of five planned buildings comprising approximately of 3.3 million sqft overall. It will support distribution of tyres under Michelin, BF Goodrich and Uniroyal brands for passenger vehicles, heavy trucks and agriculture equipment.
The facility will also feature new automation equipment, which should result in significant gains in efficiency, speed and ergonomic conditions.
“The Spartanburg distribution facility will cap a multi-year evolution of Michelin’s distribution network in North America. We see it as a transformational milestone designed to better serve our customers while optimising inventories and improving supply efficiency,” said Pete Selleck, chairman and president of Michelin North America, the Greenville, SC-based regional unit of Michelin Group (Compagnie Générale des Etablissements Michelin), the global tyre leader with headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand, France.
The new distribution centre will be located within a short distance of seven Michelin tyre plants across South Carolina’s Upstate region, as well as the company’s Greenville-based headquarters for North America and multiple other Michelin facilities.
The Spartanburg distribution facility will be developed by Panattoni Development Company, a major private international commercial developer with operations in the US, Canada, and Europe. Swisslog Group, a subsidiary of the German firm KUKA AG, will automate distribution warehouse operations for receiving, tyre selection, sequencing and shipping, as well as providing warehouse management software and controls software.