The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Michelin through the years
When the Michelin factory was built in Dundee it was supposed to be one of three Michelin factories in the area. There was to be a truck tyre factory in Perth, the site in Dundee producing car tyres and a third site in Aberdeen producing steel wire products. Unfortunately due to the oil crisis in the early 70s these plans were cancelled, the Perth factory was never built and the Aberdeen factory was closed in the mid-80s. When it started producing, the factory had a very simple mix of products and modest production levels. The site grew in the mid-80s to almost 1,500 people and over the years the product complexity grew exponentially. In its more recent configuration the factory could produce 1,000 tyres per hour, 24/7. It was responsible for producing 151 different types of tyres and up to 30 types simultaneously. Throughout its history the Dundee site and its workforce were challenged to improve productivity and performance. At one point the factory produced 14,000 tyres per day with 1,400 people. By the end of the 90s we were producing 24,000 tyres per day with 800 people. To make this happen we developed the skills of the workforce and implemented lean manufacturing, or the Michelin Manufacturing Way as we knew it. Over the years the factory was under threat of closure on a number of occasions and in 2005 the decision was actually taken to close the factory. The team worked hard and convinced Michelin it was making a mistake. At the end of 2009 we’d survived another few restructurings by the skin of our teeth. In 2010 we launched our ‘Survival to Success’ strategy and delivered some remarkable levels of performance. This gave us the chance to push for big investment and in 2014 we secured a £90m investment project called Saltire. None of us saw the massive shift in the market coming, driven by huge imports of very cheap tyres from Asia. In the space of a few years a market which had previously been 90 million tyres per year was halved. It was this that would finally close the Dundee factory. The last 20 months since we announced the closure of our factory have been full of challenges, hard work, emotion and moments of inspiration. Our team pulled together and worked extremely hard to make sure we did our absolute best to help each other get through. Our mission was that everyone found a solution. With some outstanding support from Michelin, Scottish Government and the City of Dundee we’ve been able to see 731 people do exactly that, a number that many said would not be possible. This means we still have 115 of our Team Dundee to support to their solution. This will be the sole focus of a team left behind on site for another 12 months. So as we close the door on almost 50 years of Michelin in Dundee, having produced hundreds of millions of top quality, made in Dundee tyres, we’re leaving our factory with our heads held high!