Yokohama Mississippi tire plant celebrates 10 years

Yokohama’s tire manufacturing plant is celebrating 10 years in West Point, Miss., giving playwright Tennessee Williams a run for his money as “The Friendly City” favorite son. 

The plant’s 889 employees work on four shifts, running around the clock to build Yokohama’s commercial truck and bus tires for the North American market. The facility produces upwards of 70,000 tires every month. 

“This plant is on an upswing,” said Jeff Barna, president & CEO of Yokohama Tire Corp. “Production levels are hitting records, [and] quality level is superb.”

Producing five different tire sizes and 43 different SKUs, the 1 million-square-foot Mississippi plant is the fruit of Yokohama’s global effort to blitz the U.S. commercial market that started in the early 2000s. Production started from the Mississippi location in October 2015, officially christening the site as one of Yokohama’s 18 tire plants globally, three of which produce truck and bus tires. 

Employee retention rates at the West Point facility are currently “our best in our 10 years,” Barna said – about 3% turnover. The tire plant competes for workforce with Paccar’s engine plant in neighboring Columbus, Mississippi. 

Phillip Calhoun, general manager and vice president of Yokohama Tire Manufacturing Mississippi, noted the site has established a pipeline program with high schools in the Golden Triangle region that brings students to the facility and shows them the manufacturing process and the opportunities to work in the community where they were raised. The company has also established internship programs with Mississippi State University, roughly 20 miles south. Both initiatives help show the next generation workforce just how technologically sophisticated manufacturing has become at the site that won the Yokohama Presidents Award.

“We’re one of the most automated tire facilities in Yokohama,” Calhoun said. “We’ve had a lot of brain drain with a lot of good people thinking they have to run away from home to get a good job with a good company.” 

West Point Mayor Rod Bobo was a selectman for the city in 2012 when formal work began on bringing Yokohama to the city, and he noted a “dark period” in the city at that time due to the 2007 closure of Bryan Foods and the loss of more than 1,000 local jobs. Five years later, (ground breaking at the Yokohama plant was in September 2013), light began to emerge from the darkness. When production kicked off two years later, about 500 locals had new jobs. 

“In 2012, the unemployment rate in Clay County was 22%,” Bobo recalled. “It’s now 4% … This is largely attributed to the economic footprint Yokohama has made in this community.” 

Bobo noted the taxes alone that Yokohama has paid in the last decade has helped improve the city’s infrastructure and schools. “You guys have become an integral part of this community, and we are grateful to have you,” he said. 

As much success as Yokohama enjoys locally, it’s also thriving globally. Yokohama Tire Corp., the company’s U.S. tire business, became the top division in the company last year and is helping Yokohama Rubber claw its way toward the Top 5 in global tire sales. 

Stan Chandgie, Yokohama Tire executive vice president of sales and support, noted that, after a period of time in the pandemic when truck tires were difficult to come by, dealers are now working their way through bloated inventories. 

“For 2024, we are predicting that we will continue to grow,” he said. “To have the near-shore production [and] the people that are really invested in the community will drive a lot of that success.”