Ready. Set. Roll. That is correct, Yokohama Tire Manufacturing Mississippi, LLC’s (YTMM) new commercial tire plant in West Point, Mississippi, is nearing completion. The roughly one-million-square-foot factory is on target to begin production in October 2015, with many of its key milestones involving construction, equipment installation and job recruitment achieved on schedule.
“We’ve come a long way since we broke ground in September 2013,” said Alan Easome, Yokohama Corporation of North America (YCNA) senior director, new plant development. “We outlined an aggressive plan to have a plant come on line in under 24 months, and now we are that much closer to serving our customers with expanded production capacity right here in the U.S.”
Among the milestones achieved are:
- Opening of Yokohama Boulevard, a US$20 million, four-mile road that will serve as a major thoroughfare in moving materials and products to and from the plant.
- Substantial completion of the main production building.
- Installation of equipment, with manufacturing processes, such as rubber mixing, initiated for testing purposes.
- Recruitment of 170 employees to date. By the end of 2015, nearly 300 of the 500 jobs projected are expected to be filled.
Yokohama has invested an initial US$300 million in the facility in what is considered Phase One of the plant. It will be constructed on more than 500 acres of land, which in addition to production, will include warehousing and operations facilities, and will produce up to one million tires annually.