Goodyear announces further streamlining in Americas

Akron, Ohio – Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. is continuing to streamline with further job cuts in the US and Latin America under its Goodyear Forward strategy.

In the admin & general expenses (SAG) areas, the tire maker is completing previously announced reductions of 1,200 positions in EMEA, to deliver $100 million (€93 million) in savings by 2025.

“In addition, we've also taken actions on an additional 135 positions in the US and Latin America during the first quarter,” said CEO Mark Stewart in a 7 May earnings call.

Furthermore, according to the Goodyear leader, the tire maker is continuing to ‘optimise’ in other areas such as supply-chain and R&D.

In purchasing, Goodyear is negotiating with suppliers using “clean sheet and shift cost methodologies and analytics”, which Stewart said are aided by tech advancements.

“We are implementing enhanced spend control standards and control processes to get to a deeper level of visibility,” he said.

The new processes will also enable a “very proactive” management of expenditure “all the way down to the factory level.”

With procurement playing “an essential role” in the Goodyear Forward, the US group has promoted the chief procurement officer role to report directly to the CEO on the leadership team, Stewart added.

Other cost-optimisation work across factories includes implementing improvements to drive increases in operating equipment uptime and reliability.

Furthermore, the tire maker is working to reduce the complexity in its factories by lowering the number of configurations, preparing to “run several products on common product platforms”, as well as rationalising flow-of-materials.

“We are also working to reduce overtime and third-party contractor-spend as we move forward,” Stewart added.

In footprint and plant optimisation, Stewart said Goodyear had “put together very detailed plant-specific factory plans.”

To drive factory efficiencies, Goodyear is “reviewing the details of these efficiency plans with our plant operating teams together with the leadership team on a weekly basis,” he added.

According to the CEO, Goodyear Forward delivered “about $70 million” in segment operating income improvements during the first quarter with another $75 million expected in the second trimester.

Overall, the tire maker’s first quarter segment operating income came in at $247 million, up from $122 million in the same three months of last year, Goodyear reported 6 May. (ERJ report)

Unveiled in November last year, Goodyear Forward aims to achieve $1.3 billion planned earnings improvement. (ERJ report)