Bridgestone/Firestone.

Bridgestone/Firestone, Aiken County, SC, recently began pre-operational testing of tire-making equipment, exactly one year to the day that the tire company announced it would build the $435 million passenger and light truck tire plant. The plant will continue pre-operational production of test tires through the remainder of 1998 and first quarter of 1999 as construction of the 1.6-million-square-foot facility continues. Bridgestone/Firestone is on schedule to produce tires for the market in the spring and will reach full capacity of 25,000 tires per day in the year 2000.

Kiffer Industries, the licensee of RCM AG of Zurich Switzerland, has opened a demonstration facility at its Cleveland, OH location. The unit is comprised of an MCTD-120 extruder and an in-line Micro-Mizer INW-6 6-kW microwave oven.