Michelin North America Inc.
Where we’ve been
In 1889, two brothers began a journey that shaped and continues to drive progress in modern transportation through relentless innovation. Their names? André and Édouard Michelin. Thus our story begins...
In 1889, two brothers began a journey that shaped and continues to drive progress in modern transportation through relentless innovation. Their names? André and Édouard Michelin. Thus our story begins...
Although its roots trace back to manufacturing children’s rubber balls and industrial gaskets, valves, and tubing, it wasn’t until 1891 that the Michelin brothers’ dreams take off after an overnight repair of a bicycle tire. After searching for a quicker, better way to repair the tire, the brothers find it, and Michelin files for its first patents for detachable tires.
Other Michelin firsts include:
The Michelin Group has a rich, well-balanced portfolio of brands that meet the needs of all consumer tire market segments and a high percentage of commercial market segments as well. It is a mixture of strong national brands, such as Michelin and B.F. Goodrich, as well as regional and private brands that support a multi-brand strategy.
Michelin has a global work force of 127,000 employees, including 4,000 research engineers in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Net sales – 15,689 (in € million)
Net income – 515 (in € million)
Michelin’s portion of the world tire market – 20.1%
Michelin North America operates in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico with headquarters and plants in each country, demonstrating Michelin’s long-term strategy of being close to its customers.
With sales of $7.25 billion in 2005, Michelin North America operates 19 major manufacturing plants in 17 locations and employs 22,300 people. It manufactures and sells tires for airplanes, automobiles, farm equipment, heavy-duty trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and the space shuttle.
Michelin® tires are manufactured in four states: Alabama, Oklahoma, North Carolina and South Carolina. In addition, there are three plants in Canada (Nova Scotia) and one plant in Queretaro, Mexico.
Two Michelin plants manufacture semifinished goods, taking raw materials and turning them into components for the plants that produce tires. Another plant produces synthetic rubber and rocket fuel components for NASA. Finished goods are produced in 18 plants. One site produces retreads for the trucking industry, one site builds pressed tread rubber for retreading tires and one site produces retreads for the aircraft industry. The Michelin Maps and Guides division produces road atlases, road maps, and travel guides for all the major cities in North America.
Michelin purchases the International Rubber Company in Milltown, N.J. Tires and tubes are manufactured there until 1930 at what becomes the fourth largest tire manufacturer in the country with 2,000 employees. Unfortunately, the Great Depression takes its toll in the early 1930s, and Michelin is forced to close operations in the U.S.
As it’s known today, Michelin North America returns to the U.S. in March 1950. Five people bring three sizes and two different tread designs of truck tires and organize Michelin Tire Corporation in New York City. Although the tires cost nearly twice that of the competition, their construction with metal plies bonded to rubber allows Michelin salesmen to offer a more durable tire solution for fleets operating under the most severe conditions. Fleets dealing with extremely heavy loads and sanitation business fleets embrace the brand, which establishes a reputation of durability and quality still prevalent today in the trucking industry.
In 1954, tremendous sales growth leads to the need for a larger headquarters. In 1956, a Michelin® tire revolutionizes tire markets throughout the world: the all-steel one-ply radial truck tire, first developed in 1953. Still, the bulk of Michelin’s sales are the older, metallic bias-ply tires. Even with steady annual growth, the annual sales volume in 1959 is less than a week’s production in a modern truck tire plant.
While the radial passenger tire gains acceptance in Europe in the late 1950s, it catches on in the U.S. in the 1960s. Michelin’s worldwide growth skyrockets, as it opens 12 new plants and announces that a Canadian plant will be built in Nova Scotia by 1971.
In 1966, two major events draw Michelin into the largest passenger tire market in the world. Until 1966, Michelin has only been importing small quantities of radial tires to service consumers with European cars (originally fitted with Michelin radial tires). That year, Ford Motor Company decides the 1968 Lincoln Continental Mark III will have radial tires as original equipment. Although domestic tire manufacturers were developing their own radial tires, none satisfied Ford. So it selects Michelin to be the supplier, boosting the radial tire’s acceptance and truly establishing Michelin in North America. Later that year, Sears “goes shopping” for a radial tire. Anticipating the impending “radialization” of the tire industry and in an effort to get ahead of its competition, Sears ultimately selects Michelin for its reputation of high quality and technical expertise.
By the end of 1969, expansion necessitates another move to a larger headquarters, and the Michelin work force expands to 250 people. Its field sales force now numbers more than 100.
Having led a revolution in the transportation industry with the radial tire, Michelin responds to the accelerating global demand for radial tires by opening 23 new plants. In another bold move, Michelin makes the decision to produce only radial tires and eliminate production of the old, bias-ply tires. After opening two new plants in Nova Scotia in 1971, Michelin begins construction on two more plants in western South Carolina.
On March 10, 1975, the very first American-built radial passenger tire comes off the line at Michelin’s US1 plant in Greenville, S.C. The US2 plant in Anderson, S.C., would build semifinished products to supply US1. A third plant, US3 in Spartanburg, S.C., comes on line in 1978, producing radials for the rapidly growing market in the trucking industry. Michelin completes its 1970s expansion with the opening of US4 in Dothan, Ala.
Besides production facilities, Michelin christens a research and development facility in South Carolina to develop products exclusively for the unique North American market. In 1979, it opens another new headquarters in Lake Success, N.Y., to accommodate a continuously growing work force. Having opened the decade with 250 employees, Michelin closes it with 7,000.
Michelin also dramatically expands its tire lines this decade, from two requiring tubes to a full line of tubeless, radial passenger tires that serve a growing demand for tires with greater fuel efficiency, longer life, and better handling. In 1970, there were three types of truck tires. In 1979, Michelin’s expanded line of tires meets multiple needs of varying fleet owners, from long-haul operations to hauling rocks or coal, and from bread fleets to small package delivery fleets.
The 1980s bring recession challenges and the need for consolidation in the tire industry. Fully recovered from the effects of World War II, Japanese and European companies now compete toe-to-toe with American companies in a global economy. Michelin’s major competitors finally successfully manufacture radial tires.
Smaller tire companies are absorbed by larger ones because bigger companies have a better chance of survival. For example, Uniroyal and B.F. Goodrich Tire form a joint venture in 1986 to leverage each others’ strengths in the original equipment and replacement market.
Despite tough economic times, Michelin invests heavily in its expansion in North America, opening a plant in Lexington, S.C., and another in Nova Scotia in the early 1980s. In addition, Michelin moves its North American headquarters from New York, where it had been since 1950, to Greenville, S.C., in order to consolidate North American operations and manufacturing. The doors open at its present location in 1988.
After carefully studying the market trends and monitoring the actions of its two major global competitors, Michelin purchases the Uniroyal-Goodrich Tire Company in 1989. This acquisition makes Michelin the largest tire company in the world and provides the corporation with a portfolio of strong brands with a rich heritage in the American tire market.
This difficult but crucial decade sees Michelin’s serious losses offset by better planning and cost-conscious decisions. Always a resilient company, Michelin emerges from this period stronger and smarter.
Michelin enters the 1990s offering the best products at the best price in virtually every consumer category. In 1994, the Michelin Group develops energy tires that promote better fuel economy, and in 1995, the space shuttle lands on Michelin® tires.
In 1998, Michelin develops the PAX System®, a revolutionary tire that’s vertically anchored and unseatable, allowing it to run flat after a loss of pressure, which increases the tire’s safety and extends its mobility. That same year, the Michelin Group creates Challenge Bibendum®, a global forum inviting hundreds of carmakers, energy suppliers, and technology associates as well as non-governmental organizations and politicians to help develop clean vehicles and sustainable mobility.
Looking forward to the next century of innovation and improved mobility, the Michelin Group debuts a Michelin Performance and Responsibility approach in 2002. (See values.) Two years later, the group adopts a worldwide commitment to a better way forward,™ vowing to enhance mobility based on continuous improvement of performance and exercise of responsibilities. Soon after, Michelin debuts two company-built clean concept cars.