Bridgestone Group Awards
Bridgestone Group Awards 2022

Aware of the fact that climate change is the most urgent environmental challenge, the team launched the “Lighthouse Plant project” as a journey towards carbon neutrality. The team members assessed the carbon footprint and successfully implemented the validation process. Building up on this pilot, a blueprint was created and rolled out to all the EMIA tire plants. As a result of the carbon reduction projects over the years, plants in Europe have achieved a 59% CO₂ reduction in 2021 compared to 2011 baseline, and the global target of 50% reduction by 2030 will be reached as well at EMIA in 2023.

Aligned with Taiwan government’s announcement on 100% shift to electric vehicle (EV) in 2040 as a part of “Zero emission policy,” electronics manufacturing service (EMS) business starting to enter the automotive industry with Battery EV. Thanks to project members’ continuous communication to EMS customer in Taiwan to propose that fuel-efficient tires with ENLITEN technology* would contribute to reducing CO₂ emission, the customer finally selected Bridgestone as an exclusive supplier.
This project not only contributed to raising Bridgestone’s presence in Taiwan but also to promoting EV business, which leads to improving the environment in Taiwan.

*Innovative tire technology maximizes both environmental and driving performance of tires

Guayule, a desert shrub identified as an alternative source of natural rubber, requires two years to attain its optimal stage for rubber evaluation. To accelerate the timeline to make this crop commercially viable, it was prudent to use advanced genomic modelling to shorten the breeding cycle. Project members built the “Guayule Genomic ML Model,” a predictive analytical tool designed to exceed the performance of third-party software to more accurately predict yield and accelerate breeding decisions. The project succeeded in significantly improving the accuracy of predictions, helped shorten the breeding cycle from two years to only six months, and managed to keep all data and tool development proprietary within Bridgestone.

The project team worked on the enhancement of corporate brand value by Lunar Rover tires co-creation activity which communicate how Bridgestone supports safety and peace of mind from the ground up through our innovations.
Co-creation activities for the development of Lunar tires with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Toyota Motor Corporation contributed to strengthening the relationships with partner companies as a team and to the brand enhancement for each member company. The project succeeded in conveying messages such as the importance of chasing dreams and taking on challenges to the younger generation who will lead the next generation.

To respond to strong sales volume during the high demand season, project members established a new operation to prevent missed sales and optimize inventory. The project team utilized AI demand forecasting, which predicts the latest sales trends based on new car sales/production and weather forecast data, so that they could allocate inventory to each area in line with demand. They also introduced BCMA* for new products to shorten lead time of tread pattern change. This project contributed not only to reducing cost and environmental impact by reducing waste in inventory and delivery, but also to further enhancing safety on winter roads by timely supply.

*BCMA: Bridgestone Commonality Modularity Architecture

Through 2020-2021, the COVID-19 brought a great impact to Bridgestone as well as our customers and OEMs. In 2021, a global shortage of commercial tires occurred caused by aggressive sales recovery while consumer tires demand suddenly dropped due to OEM production decrease by semi-conductor shortage.
In response to such a volatile environment, the project team reshaped the global supply chain platform and achieved optimizing the global production plan in line with global tire sourcing plan to cope with the extreme sales fluctuation under the COVID-19 and parts shortage. In terms of customer value creation, the project members also established flexible and agile ocean transportation with the new governance “Global One Team” for stable sustainable tire supply to the customers.

BSAM was hit by a significant cyber attack in 2022 that made many business-critical systems inoperable. In response, the cross functional team worked quickly and exhaustively to neutralize the threat, analyze impact to applications, and bring critical business capabilities back online.
Quick action, effective operational planning and execution, and frequent communication with stakeholders helped secure and restore the environment, maintain business relationships, protect corporate reputation, and mitigate further negative impact.
Additionally, opportunities were identified to improve operational efficiency, and lessons learned from the incident helped enhance security measures to protect against future attacks.

At the beginning of Russia-Ukraine crisis, the whole tire industry and BSEMIA were heavily depending on Russian sourcing for several key raw materials.
Sensing the difficulty in tire production under such situation, the cross-functional and global task force took quick action in searching for alternative sources, while reformulating some compounds and mitigating the consumption of the critical raw materials. The replacement of key materials formerly sourced from Russia with alternative suppliers contributed to continuity in tire production for Bridgestone, securing non-stop mobility for our customers.