Fibers & Textiles Company
Gastonia, North Carolina
Bennettsville, South Carolina
August,
1982
Bowling Green, Kentucky • Hopewell, Virginia
From The Gen. Factory Mgr’s. Desk
TO ALL EMPLOYEES:
Quality & Productivity
For several months we have been looking at a means to involve
more people in helping to improve our plant, productivity and
quality. lefi Claypool, Sam Crawiord, Phil Williams and I have at
tended several meetings, listened to speakers and visited one of
our tire plants to take a look at Quality Circles.
Quality Teams are committees of small groups of employees who
together with a supervisor study problems and opportunities in
their department on their shift. They meet weekly on company
time for about one hour.
We want to start a similar pilot program at Gastonia with some of
you becoming committee members. We will call our committees
"Q & PT", Quality and Productivity Teams. We will start with two
teams consisting of six employees (including one supervisor) from
the first shift Twisting Department, and the other from the first shif
Weaving Department.
We plan to have active teams functioning by October 1st. Watch
your bulletin board for further details on team member volunteer
instructions.
We want to make this work for you and our plant. Be thinking
about those things affecting quality and productivity in your
department.
R.L. KING
■
Giant tractors
head for Turkey
latelff
3^
A giant Terex tractor, capable of
pulling hopper loads of coal
weighing 150 tons, is loaded
aboard the German ship “Project
Americas” at the Port of
Cleveland. Twelve of the tractors
and hoppers are being shipped to
the Turkish Coal Authority. Each
of the Terex units—known as
34-11C coal haulers—is equipped
with 10 Firestone Super Rock Grip
tires, size 27.00-49. Tires on each
unit are valued at approximately
$50,000. Terex manufactured the
coal haulers at its Brooklyn, Ohio,
plant, while the Firestone tires
were manufactured in Bloom
ington, 111.
Have you read a tire lately?
It seems there’s about as much
information on the sidewall as
there is in a table of contents of a
college textbook.
Actually, there are 25 different
it^ms of information tire manufac
turers convey, including who made
the tire or the brand name, the tire
size, its construction and load
limits, the quality grades, moun
ting instructions, safety warnings,
as well as place and date of its
manufacture.
All this data stamped on the side
of each U.S.-made tire benefits not
only the customer but also aids in
the inspection, inventory and
warehouse functions prior to sale.
‘The only problem is all this in
formation is not placed on the
sidewall in an organized manner,
thus impairing the usefullness of
the data to the manufacturer, seller
and consumer,” says Pete
McDonald, manager of tire design
at Firestone.
McDonald has come up with a
solution, designed to make it easier
to locate and read all the sidewall
information. He calls his patent-
pending invention “unified
modular stamping (UMS).”
UMS allows the information to
be contained within a series of
modules, forming a segmented an
nular band around the tire
sidewalls.
The band containing the
modules of information on the
outer or curb side of the tire is
located in the portion of the
sidewall near the tire shoulder area,
promoting maximum legibility of
the markings, McDonald explain
ed.
The band of modules on the in
ner or hidden side of the tire is
located near the bead area, permit
ting retreading of the tire without
loss of information.
Other features and advantagesof
the McDonald invention include
provisions for additional room for
future stampings, more aesthetical
ly sound system for displaying
sidewall stamping, improved ven
ting of the tire during curing, better
cost efficiency for mold design and
reduced mold manufacturing costs.
McDonald said Firestone’s mold
design department produces ap
proximately 350 to 375 com
puterized stamping drawings to
stamp about 650 to 700 molds an
nually.
“Along with the savings in tire
design time, new stamps, man-hour
drawing and mold stamping time,
an estimated $70,000 is saved per
year,” said McDonald.
Firestone has applied for patent
protection on McDonald’s UMS
invention. First industrial applica
tion of UMS is on Firestone’s new
Ste.’l Belted Radial 721 Metrix
passenger tire which was just in
troduced in the replacement
market.
Company To
Open New
Roofing Plant
The Firestone Tire & Rubber
Company announced that it is
making a multi-million dollar
capital investment in its roofing
business.
Terry J. Renninger, president of
the Firestone Industrial Products
Company, said the division will an
nounce the plant site and begin
construction soon.
“The plant will be fully
dedicated to producing Firestone
EPDM roofing,” Renninger ex
plained.
It will have more than 250,000
square feet of covered floor space
and will have initial production
capacity of 400 million square feet
annually.
The new plant will be in full
operation in late 1983. It will use
advanced technology and will in
corporate the most sophisticated
production processes available.
‘The new plant will be the
largest and most efficient rubber
roofing mjmufacturing facility in
the industry. It has been designed
for a quick and cost-effective
doubling of production capacity to
meet future requirements,” Renn
inger said.
“EPDM rubber roofing has
become the most economical pro
duct for covering new and existing
flat roofs,” the Firestone executive
said, adding: ‘The automated
facility will enable Firestone to ef
fectively compete in this rapidly
growing market.”
Renninger said the design and
engineering of the new plant have
been completed and that orders are
being placed for the needed
machinery and equipment.
Firestone will continue to produce
EPDM roofing at its plant in
Noblesville, Ind., to meet the rapid
ly growing demand for Firestone
roofing.
Firestone
Stock
The most recent report (July)
showed 6,174 employees with ac
counts in the Firestone Stock Pur
chase & Savings Plan. Manufac
turers Hanover Trust Company,'
Trustee for the Plan, purchased
Firestone Common Stock for ac
counts of participating employees
at an average price of $ 11.11.