Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/201087
scription service ranges from $200 to $600, depending on the length of the commitment. Refuse market dominator Mack closed last year with 8.9 percent market share, and Walsh said the company is likely to come close but is unlikely to meet that mark this year as its core markets struggle under economic conditions. He said his company's successes can be measured only on the fields where it does battle, and it's become highly successful fighting those fights. "We play in refuse," Walsh said. "We continue to be the dominant player in that market." Construction, traditionally a strong segment for Mack, has all but disappeared in the wake of the economic recession. "If that could get back to a normal level, we would become a doubledigit player in overall market share," Walsh said. "We've not lost customers, but they're not buying." Mack isn't sitting around waiting for conditions to improve. Walsh said the company is being proactive in changing the things it can control, and that includes bolstering its focus on the regional haul market. "We're doing very well in that segment," he said. "When the construction market disappeared, we focused our organization and dealers to sell regional haulers again. We feel very good about where we're positioned in that market today." Walsh also noted that Mack doesn't even do business in a market segment that sees a large volume of trucks bought and sold. "The truckload segment of the market is not where Mack plays," Walsh said, explaining that truckload is a core business for its Swedish sister, Volvo Trucks. "That means we're out of half of the market." – Jack Roberts 32 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2013 Yokohama Tire Manufacturing Mississippi in West Point, Miss., is slated to be completed in October 2015. Yokohama breaks ground on U.S. commercial tire plant W ith a groundbreaking ceremony in late September, Yokohama Tire Corp. officially began construction of a state-of-the-art commercial tire manufacturing facility in West Point, Miss. The new operation, named Yokohama Tire Manufacturing Mississippi, is slated to be completed in October 2015. YTMM will manufacture Yokohama drive, steer and trailer tires for Class 4-8 vehicles. "This is a great day for Yokohama, Mississippi and the community of West Point," said Tadaharu Yamamoto, YTMM president. "There's no question we made the right choice coming to Mississippi with this project." When Phase 1 is complete and production is fully online, the plant will output 3,000 tires per day – about 1 million units per year – and employ 500 people. Additional phases could increase capacity to about 4 million units per year. "The Mississippi plant will be ultra-modern with the latest tire manufacturing technology from Yokohama and the industry and has the potential to be one of the largest and highest-output facilities," said Hikomitsu Noji, president and representative director of the Yokohama Rubber Co. Presently, Yokohama supplies dealers and customers with product primarily from its plant in Thailand as well as GTY Tire, Yokohama's Mt. Vernon, Ill.-based joint partnership with Continental Tire the Americas. The YTMM plant will augment domestic production, reduce shipping costs and help the company remain flexible to market demand. "For our dealers, this means product no longer has to cross the ocean to get to their door," said Noji. "For Yokohama, it means our dealers know we are here to stay for the long haul as business partners." YTMM will be exclusively responsive to the needs of Yokohama's U.S. customers. "We will have a manufacturing process cycle from raw materials to tires that has shorter lead times, thus improving time to market for our product," said Yamamoto. "The plant will also be home to Yokohama's proprietary technology optimized to produce the best combination of retreadability, durability and fuel efficiency." – Jeff Crissey