Yokohama Rubber Company’s decision to establish Mexico as the manufacturing hub for its Americas OTR operations signals more than a capacity expansion. It reflects a strategic overhaul of its global industrial footprint. As geopolitical uncertainties, tariff risks and supply-chain disruptions reshape manufacturing priorities, the company’s ‘local for local’ model seeks to position production closer to customers while strengthening resilience. The move also underlines its broader ambition to emerge as the world’s second-largest supplier of specialised mining and construction tyres.

Yokomaha Rubber Company is seeing Mexico as its gateway for Americas, especially its OTR tyre business. Mexico will serve as the production hub for Yokohama and Goodyear Off-the-Road branded products under its ‘local for local’ manufacturing strategy.

Yokohama Rubber will invest USD 115 million to build a mining and construction machinery tyre plant in Mexico as part of the second phase of expansion at its site, where a passenger car tyre plant is already under construction. The brownfield facility will have an annual production capacity of 10,650 tonnes (rubber weight), with construction due to begin in the third quarter of 2026 and production expected to start in the second quarter of 2028.

The company is also establishing a greenfield OTR tyre plant in Odisha, India, with an annual production capacity of 9,150 tonnes and a planned investment of USD 130 million. Production at the Indian facility is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2028.

The facility will supply OTR tyres across North and South America, complementing plants in Romania, India, Japan and the Czech Republic, while maintaining global quality standards supported by research and development centres in Japan and US.

Speaking to Tyre Trends¸ Yokohama OTR President Loic Ravasio said, “Mexico becomes the anchor of our Americas production, part of a broader move towards a ‘local for local’ model in which we manufacture OTR tyres in every major region, closer to the customers who use them. It joins a growing worldwide footprint that already includes Romania, India, Japan and the Czech Republic – every site held to the same quality benchmark backed by our research and development centres in Japan and US. For manufacturing specifically, Mexico’s role is to serve North and South America from one central site, putting product closer to mining, construction and infrastructure customers throughout the Americas.”

The plants in India and Mexico are sized and positioned for the regions they serve. These new facilities are part of the company’s transition from Goodyear-operated production to Yokohama-owned sites while also growing its total worldwide OTR capacity. Japan remains one of the company’s core production sites throughout, added Ravasio.

“Mexico’s plant and India’s greenfield plant will more than replace Goodyear plants capacity, allowing us to continue supplying our existing customers, supporting their growth, and also winning new customers with the additional capacity,” he added.

As for production responsibilities, the company’s goal is to produce tyres closest to the customers that need them. OTR plants are flexible and able to adapt to regional needs. “We’re not locking in specifics yet. We want to listen to customers and show them what the combined portfolio can do first and let that shape where things get built,” Ravasio said.

The Mexico manufacturing facility is being developed in Saltillo, Coahuila. Its centralised location for production and distribution across the entire Americas region will allow Yokohama to produce OTR tyres closer to its customers, shortening the lead time and improving responsiveness to customer requests.

“We’re building the Saltillo site to be state-of-the-art from day one including the technology and quality standards because we’re not planning only for today’s market, we’re planning for where our customers and this industry are heading,” said Ravasio.

MARKET ADVANTAGES

The acquisition of Goodyear’s OTR business has created optimum synergies for Yokohama Rubber Company as it is now leveraging the strengths of two complementary product portfolios, which lets it offer one of the most complete product ranges available and better meet the needs of its customers.

“Manufacturing, logistics, research and development synergies have all played their part, bringing procurement, production planning and engineering together from both organisations rather than running them in parallel. Together, that’s meant retaining the great majority of longstanding accounts from both sides and winning new customers we hadn’t worked with before,” said Ravasio.

He added, “What’s really exceeded our initial expectations is the pace. We said we wanted to move quickly on capacity and within about a year of closing we’d already committed to three new or expanded plants across three continents. The two research and development centres working together have increased our capabilities to launch quicker new products and new technologies into the market. That pace shows real commitment to the OTR industry.”

Commenting on the advantages that Mexico offers the business, he noted that Mexico has a skilled, experienced manufacturing workforce and an established industrial supplier base. Its real advantage is geography as a single site here can efficiently reach customers across North America, Central America and South America, which is central to the company’s local-for-local approach.

Yokohama Rubber Company is also able to build on existing local relationships in the country, giving it a head start on talent and operational know-how as it brings the OTR plant online.

GROWTH DRIVERS

According to Ravasio, global infrastructure development in roads, rail and housing along with continued mining and construction activity continues to drive demand for OTR tyres across the Americas.

Mexico’s centralised location allows for shorter supply lines and tyres built closer to the mines and job sites that use them rather than shipped across oceans, which means less equipment downtime waiting on tyres.

“In a market where total cost of ownership (TCO) and not just tyre price drives the buying decision, minimising that downtime is one of the ways we compete,” he noted.

The Mexico plant is designed first and foremost to serve regional demand across the Americas. Nonetheless, the company’s global network is built for flexibility and the plant’s output can support other markets as needed to balance capacity across our worldwide footprint, said Ravasio.

The primary beneficiaries will be mining and construction operators across the Americas along with the infrastructure projects that depend on them. Yokohama Rubber Company’s priority is to better serve its customers, global or local, and to ensure business continuity.

Moreover, as competition toughens in the global OTR market, Yokohama Rubber Company seeks to secure the second spot in the list of world’s largest suppliers. Alluding to this, Ravasio said, “Our ambition is clear. We want to become the world’s second-largest supplier of specialised mining and construction tyres and the right manufacturing footprint is one part of how we get there alongside the same high-quality standards we’re building into every new site including Mexico.”

“Product quality and performance matter just as much and our research and development centres in Japan and US design tyres built specifically for this segment backed by services like tyre pressure management systems TPMS and EMTrack that give customers real-time visibility into tyre health and performance,” he added.

The target behind all of it is straightforward, which is to lower Yokohama customers’ TCO and help them run more competitive operations. Total cost of ownership matters more to OTR customers than any other measure and Yokohama Rubber Company is building everything including research and development, service tools and manufacturing around living up to its TCO leadership position in the market.

FIGHTING CHALLENGES

The plant is being built around modern, energy- and water-efficient lines with the digital process controls needed to hold consistent quality at scale. Producing closer to its customers also means less long-distance transportation of finished tyres and fewer transport-related emissions as a result.

Workforce training will be built around Yokohama Rubber Company’s current manufacturing standards and the plant’s operations will be measured against the environmental targets in its medium-term management plan.

Furthermore, this project is as much about people as it is about capacity. The company is leaning on local expertise and know-how in the region to build the Mexico manufacturing team paired with quality training grounded in its manufacturing experience from other parts of the world.

Hence, the site benefits from both perspectives from day one and creates meaningful skilled employment, directly at the plant and through the broader supplier network around it.

“It’s the same approach we’ve used successfully as we’ve expanded elsewhere. We invest in local talent, train heavily and hold everyone to the same standards we apply globally. Wherever we build, the people on the floor get the same training and hold the same standards as any other Yokohama site. That’s non-negotiable,” Ravasio said.

Alluding to tackling supply chain setbacks, the executive noted that producing closer to the customer is the clearest way to build resilience too as it reduces the company’s exposure to long cross-continental shipping routes and the risks that come with them, plus it helps mitigate the impacts of tariffs.

“Our plant in Mexico makes our overall industrial footprint stronger, which is what helps us weather supply-side setbacks rather than depending on any single site or transit lane. It also lets us react faster to swings in product trends and other unforeseen events because the people and the production capacity making that call are closer to where the need actually is. That kind of diversified, local-for-local footprint is deliberately designed to avoid the kind of supply shocks the industry has seen in recent years,” he added. And over the next five years, Mexico becomes one of the clearest proof points for the company’s local-for-local approach. “We expect continued growth from infrastructure and mining activity and customers pushing equipment harder, which raises the bar for durability and service as much as tyre technology. Regional manufacturing, closer partnerships with customers and the network we’ve built over the past year are how we intend to become the world’s second-largest supplier in the OTR industry,” Ravasio said.

Mexico’s emergence as the company’s Americas manufacturing hub represents a calculated investment in regionalisation rather than simple capacity addition. Whether this strategy translates into sustained market share gains will depend on execution, customer adoption and competitive pressures, but it firmly positions the company to respond faster to an increasingly demanding global OTR market.

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ATIRE, a leading Sri Lankan Solid tyre maker, has appointed Thierry Miche as director of OEM and product, effective September 2026, bringing more than 25 years of experience in the global tyre and mobility industry to the role.

At ATIRE, Miche will lead the company's OEM and product activities, focusing on portfolio development, OEM relationships and expansion into new technical and commercial markets globally.

Miche joins from Michelin, where he spent 26 years in senior product and operational leadership positions, including roles at Solideal and Camso before their integration into the French group.

His most recent position was product Management Director for Beyond Road, with global strategic and operational responsibility for the product portfolio. He led teams across Belgium, Canada, France and the US, working with research and development, industrialisation, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and aftermarket sales, and supply chain functions.

Previously, Miche was Product Line Executive Director For material handling, overseeing the global product platform and holding full profit and loss responsibility for three manufacturing sites in Belgium, Germany and the US. He also led global research and development teams in Belgium and Sri Lanka.

His career has spanned product management and engineering, technical support, warranty management, quality assurance and systems. The experience covers the development and delivery of products across engineering, industrialisation, validation, sales and supply chain operations.

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ZC Rubber, China’s largest tyre maker, is running 18 AI agents across its Hangzhou 5G plant. It insists the goal is smarter manufacturing, not emptier factory floors.

Walk into the industrial conversation about automation these days and ‘lights-out’ production tends to come up within minutes: factories with no people, no lighting and machines working in the dark. However, ZC Rubber, the Hangzhou-based group that ranks among the world’s top nine tyre companies, would like to correct that impression before it takes hold.

“We see this as a 5G Smart Factory, or Future Factory V2.0, rather than a ‘dark factory’. The goal is intelligent manufacturing, not simply removing people from the production process,” the company said in an interview.

That is a notable position from a company that has just put 18 AI agents to work across its production chain and reports defect rates well under half those of its earlier operations. It is also a considered one, and the details explain a good deal about how the world’s largest tyre market is approaching the factory of the future.

PEOPLE AT THE EXCEPTIONS

ZC Rubber’s division of labour is simple. Automation, AI and real-time data are steadily taking over what the company calls ‘repetitive and highly standardised operations.’ Its people are being moved towards engineering, process management, quality assurance and the handling of exceptions, meaning the unusual problems that no model has seen before.

“We will continue to increase automation, but fully unmanned production is not the goal,” ZC Rubber said. “It is about combining intelligent systems with human expertise.”

The same logic applies to the future. Asked whether lights-out production is on the roadmap, ZC Rubber was clear. “We do not see fully lights-out production as a goal in itself. Technology will be introduced where it brings clear improvements in quality, efficiency, safety and sustainability,” it said.

EIGHTEEN AGENTS, ONE PRODUCTION CHAIN

The scale of the AI deployment is considerable. Since June 2025, ZC Rubber has introduced 18 AI agents across the full production chain. Their use ranges from AI-assisted formulation and virtual simulation to equipment maintenance, production scheduling and quality control. According to the company, they have helped shorten tyre development cycles by 50 percent and lifted production efficiency by 50 percent.

Where does the value come from? Not from any single stage, the company suggests. “The biggest value comes from using AI to analyse production data, optimise process parameters and support faster decision-making across the manufacturing process,” it said. ZC Rubber does not currently publish a stage-by-stage breakdown of the gains.

INSPECTION AND THE DEFECT RATE

Quality control is where the company’s numbers are most striking. Its latest AI-based visual inspection systems, it says, can achieve a defect detection rate of close to 100 percent, improving both the speed and the consistency of inspection. That matters most in high-volume passenger car radial (PCR) output, where human inspectors face the twin problems of fatigue and sheer throughput.

Zooming out, the company says AI and digital quality control across its smart manufacturing system have cut its product defect rate from 1.2 percent to 0.5 percent.

HOW THE SYSTEMS TALK TO EACH OTHER

“Thousands of sensors collect production data in real time, while 5G connects equipment, quality inspection and logistics systems,” the company said. The APS+MES system pulls production, quality and logistics information into one place ‘so operations can be monitored and adjusted quickly’. AI and big data analytics then help staff spot problems and make faster production decisions.

AN EARLIER SET OF NUMBERS, UPDATED

ZC Rubber’s earlier claims of a 15 percent efficiency gain, up to 40 percent lower defect rates and a 5 percent cut in energy use make one notice that the latest figures are considerably better. The company is candid about why. “Those figures reflect an earlier stage of our smart factory development,” it said.

The current numbers, for the 5G Smart Factory, are a 50 percent improvement in production efficiency, defect rates down from 1.2 percent to 0.5 percent and a 10 percent reduction in overall energy consumption.

As for which technology deserves the credit, ZC Rubber declines to rank them. “We do not break down the improvement by individual technology,” it said, naming instead the key components: AI-based process control, automated inspection, intelligent logistics, APS+MES production management and data-driven quality control.

ENERGY, MEASURED VALVE BY VALVE

The energy figure is worth a closer look, because it comes from a fairly granular system. ZC Rubber’s energy management combines 5G, IoT, big data, AI and digital-twin technologies. Smart sensors, smart meters and smart valves feed real-time data into a central energy platform, while AI supports analysis and operational optimisation.

The division of labour among the technologies is neat. “5G provides the connectivity, while AI, big data and digital twins help turn the data into better energy-management decisions,” the company said.

TWO PLATFORMS AND A DIFFERENT STARTING POINT

The manufacturing story is inseparable from the development story. ZC Rubber runs two proprietary technology platforms: the X-Tech System, primarily for truck and bus radial (TBR) tyres, and the Phecda Tech System, primarily for PCR tyres. Each integrates compound formulation, tyre structure, process engineering, simulation, testing and intelligent manufacturing within a single development framework.

Their defining feature is what the company calls the Forward-development Approach. Traditional development, it explains, “often starts from an existing product and improves it through repeated design and testing cycles”. ZC Rubber starts elsewhere: with the target performance, whether that is vehicle characteristics, duty cycle, climate, road conditions or customer requirements. The compound, tyre structure and manufacturing process are then built around those targets. “This shifts the workflow from repeated iteration to a more integrated, target-driven development process,” the company said.

That, it argues, is where the halving of development time comes from. The 50 percent reduction reflects ‘a more integrated digital development process’, combining engineering expertise with simulation, AI-assisted tools and closer links between R&D, testing and manufacturing. AI lets engineers evaluate more design options against defined performance targets, and virtual simulation cuts out unnecessary physical iterations.

How tightly these platforms are wired into live production data has not been shared publicly. X-Tech and Phecda, the company said, connect R&D, manufacturing and validation within an integrated development process, but the detailed real-time data architecture behind them ‘is not something we currently disclose publicly’.

Henry Shen, ZC Rubber’s Senior Vice President, has made the wider point in the context of the group’s recent State recognition. “Our objective is not simply to develop an individual material, tread pattern or manufacturing process,” he said. “X-Tech and Phecda are complete development systems that connect user requirements with simulation, materials, tyre engineering, manufacturing and validation.”

THE STATE PRIZE

That recognition is significant. ZC Rubber, together with Harbin Institute of Technology, has been awarded the Second Prize of China’s State Science and Technology Progress Award for a project titled ‘Key Technologies and Green Intelligent Manufacturing of High-Performance Tires’. It is one of the country’s highest state-level honours for scientific and technological innovation, and ZC Rubber says it is the only Chinese tyre manufacturer in the past decade to win it at the Second Prize level or above.

The company backs the claim with spending. In 2025, it invested around RMB 1.54 billion (approximately USD 226 million in R&D, equal to 3.43 percent of annual revenue, according to its annual report. The award, it says, recognises technologies that have ‘progressed beyond laboratory research into industrial application’.

GLOBAL FOOTPRINT

ZC Rubber has built a truly global footprint, combining a strong manufacturing base in China with an expanding network of operations across Europe, the Americas, Southeast Asia and beyond. In China, the company operates through multiple sites, including its headquartered in Hangzhou and facilities in Tianjin, Chaoyang, Jiande, Qingquan, Yonggu, Anji and Jintan, supported by dedicated units for recycling technology and automotive aftermarket services in Hangzhou.

Beyond China, ZC Rubber has established a European presence through ZC Rubber Europe GmbH and its Europe Technical Center, alongside ZC Rubber America Inc. in the United States, ZC Rubber Brazil IMP EXP LTDA in South America and ZC Rubber Thailand Co. Ltd. and PT. Matahari Tire Indonesia (MTI) in Southeast Asia.

The company is also preparing for further expansion, with new projects under development in Vietnam and Mexico (Marea Tire de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.) and a feasibility study underway in Egypt. Together, these locations allow ZC Rubber to serve customers closer to their markets, strengthen supply chain resilience and combine local insight with global technical expertise.

CUSTOMISATION WITHOUT THE PENALTY

The forward-development model has a commercial payoff: tyres tailored to where and how they will be used. Asked whether the platforms allow genuine mass customisation, including regional climates and EV-specific requirements, ZC Rubber answered ‘to a significant degree’.

“X-Tech and Phecda allow us to develop tyres around specific climates, road conditions, vehicle applications and performance targets, including EV-specific requirements,” it said. On the factory floor, flexible production lines adjust output as product mix and orders change. The company does not disclose a separate efficiency figure for customised production, though ‘the goal is clear: to increase product flexibility while keeping production efficient’.

The regional examples are concrete. In Asia, X-Tech underpins the X-Elite Truck Tyre Series. In Europe, it is applied to the WESTLAKE Gen II commercial lineup, with a focus on fleet efficiency, performance and regulatory requirements. Phecda sits behind the WESTLAKE ZuperAce Z-007 and GOODRIDE Solmax 1 passenger tyres, and technologies from both platforms have been applied across ARISUN’s full TBR and PCR ranges for the Americas.

“International markets do not have identical requirements,” Shen said. “A tyre developed for European highway fleets, Southeast Asian transport operations or passenger vehicles in the Americas must respond to different vehicles, roads, climates and customer priorities.”

WHAT COMES NEXT

Much of the technology commonly billed as next-generation is already in service at ZC Rubber. Automated logistics, AI-based visual inspection, process optimisation, digital simulation and virtual testing are all in use. Digital twins are applied in areas such as energy management, and a broader digital-twin virtual factory is part of the next-stage plan.

The company frames the coming three years as a period of deepening rather than reinvention: more smart-factory applications, more AI and industry-specific models and close attention to emerging technologies such as humanoid robotics ‘as they mature’.

That phrasing may be the most revealing thing about ZC Rubber’s approach. It is chasing results rather than headlines. As the company itself puts it, the launch of the Hangzhou plant marks ‘a new opportunity and starting point’, and its stated ambition is to become a world-leading tyre company with higher standards. Whether the lights stay on, it seems, is the least of its concerns.

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AMETEK recently completed its USD 5- billion all-cash acquisition of a portfolio of instrumentation businesses from Indicor.

The businesses, collectively known as Indicor Instrumentation, make equipment for industrial and scientific applications. Their products serve markets that overlap with AMETEK’s existing operations and generate recurring revenue from consumables, services and aftermarket support.

David A Zapico, AMETEK’s Chairman and Chief Executive, said: “We are excited to complete this highly strategic acquisition and to welcome the Indicor Instrumentation team to AMETEK. With its mission-critical solutions, deep technical expertise, and strong positions in attractive end markets, Indicor Instrumentation is an excellent fit with AMETEK. We also see meaningful opportunities to create value through integration into our proven operating model.”

Indicor Instrumentation is expected to contribute about USD 350 million to AMETEK’s sales in 2026 and to be modestly accretive to adjusted earnings for the year.

The acquired businesses will join AMETEK’s Electronic Instruments Group and Electromechanical Group, according to their products and market focus.

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The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has elected Joe Hinrichs as chairman of its Board of Directors, effective 7 October 2026. He will also chair the board's Governance and Executive Committees. Hinrichs joined the board in 2023 and succeeds Laurette Koellner, who will retire at the 2027 annual meeting under Goodyear's Corporate Governance Guidelines.

Hinrichs most recently served as President and Chief Executive Officer of CSX Corporation. Before that, he held numerous leadership roles at Ford Motor Company, including President of the Global Automotive Business, Executive Vice President and President of Global Operations, Executive Vice President and President of the Americas, President of Asia Pacific and Africa, and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ford China. He also led Ford Canada. Hinrichs holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Dayton and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Koellner previously held several leadership roles at The Boeing Company. She joined Goodyear's board in 2015, became independent Lead Director in 2019, and Non-Executive Chairman in 2024.

Hinrichs said, "I would like to recognise and thank Laurette for her leadership, dedication and unwavering commitment to Goodyear. On behalf of the Board, we are grateful for her many contributions throughout her more than a decade of service. I look forward to working alongside my fellow board members and the leadership team as we continue to innovate, strengthen our competitive position, create long-term value for our shareholders and build a stronger Goodyear."

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