Michelin

Pioneering engineered materials for more than 130 years, Michelin is building a world-leading manufacturer of premium tires, life-changing composites and experiences with the Michelin Guide.

Data Modernization and Contribution

2025

Data Modernization and Contribution

2025

Data Modernization and Contribution

2025

Data Modernization and Contribution

2025

Run cost divided by 3, Efficiency to deliver divided by 5, Releases in Zero downtime

‍Data Streaming Technology Used:

‍

Apache Kafka®
Confluent Cloud
Confluent Community
Kafka Streams
Kafka Connect
Apache Spark®
‍KStreamplify (open sourced library committed by Michelin)
‍ns4kafka (open sourced library committed by Michelin)
‍AKHQ tools
Currently integrating Michelin contributions: (KIP 1033 , KIP 1034 , KIP 1111 , KIP-1138)

‍

What problem were they looking to solve with Data Streaming Technology?

‍

Michelin, a 130 year old institution, needs to grow and transform its Information System to adapt to an ever changing modern world. Locked with heavy batch driven processes, its IT organisation is limited in its capacity to rapidly meet business needs and make real time business decisions. The existing problems: downtime with impact on operations and production (+60 factories), poor quality of service, inability to innovate, inability to attract talent and a slow fragmented cloud migration reinforcing the perception of IT as a business inhibitor.

‍

How did they solve the problem?

‍

In 2018, Michelin identified Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) as a strategic lever to modernize its Information System and make it more reactive and adaptable to a fast-changing world. This transformation required a fundamental shift in mindset, backed by strong executive sponsorship. To maximize the chances of success, we focused our efforts on three key areas:

‍

Empowering Delivery Teams: we launched a comprehensive initiative called Boosters to guide and encourage delivery teams on their EDA journey. The change management process is documented here (https://blogit.michelin.io/continuously-modernize-our-information-system)
Building a Scalable IT Platform: to support teams and ease adoption, we developed an internal platform offering Kafka as a service, along with dedicated support, guidance, and training. Today, this platform enables over 200 use cases across the organization.
Fostering a Strong Technical Culture: we actively invested in communities of practice to promote the adoption and mastery of Kafka and streaming technologies. This includes regular facilitation of technical communities, certification-based training programs in partnership with Confluent, the organization of large-scale events such as Kafka Day 2024, which brought together over 800 participants for conferences, workshops, and feedback sessions featuring L’Oréal, ADEO, BMW, and Confluent, followed by the Data & Integration TechEvent gathered 900 attendees, confirming the growing interest in EDA and streaming. These initiatives have strengthened Michelin’s technical culture and positioned the company as an active contributor to the open-source ecosystem.

‍

From Monoliths to Cloud-Native Systems: EDA as a Catalyst for Change. Michelin’s landscape includes both legacy and modern applications. EDA and Kafka Streams have proven to be powerful enablers for modernization, helping us decouple systems, accelerate delivery, and improve agility. This transformation is not theoretical—it’s already delivering tangible results across multiple domains:

‍

Supply Chain: we replaced legacy orchestration systems and monolithic architectures with event-driven choreography. Using the Strangler pattern and technologies like Kafka and Kafka Streams, we transitioned gradually to minimize business impact, simulating legacy behavior while incrementally breaking down systems into smaller, manageable components.
Order-Taking Applications: we successfully decoupled functions from mainframe systems—without disrupting legacy operations—allowing us to deliver new features and offers during the transition to modern platforms.
Michelin Guide: Previously reliant on manual, batch-oriented processes, the Michelin Guide’s star revelation was transformed using Kafka and streaming. By integrating SaaS solutions via Confluent Cloud, we reduced publication delays from two days to near real-time. Today, the only constraint on organizing Michelin Guide ceremonies is human—not technological.

‍

Event-Driven Architecture is more than a technical choice—it’s a strategic enabler of business agility, innovation, and modernization. Through a combination of mindset shifts, platform investments, and community engagement, Michelin is building a resilient, scalable, and future-ready Information System.

‍

What was the positive outcome?

‍

The adoption of data streaming enables huge benefits:

Deployed new capabilities in 200+ of use cases including stream processing in the supply chain orchestrator, the financial treasury applications, IOT and data platform and manufacturing applications in 60+ factories. Impact: Business entities have a higher quality of service and IT has a resilient, decoupled and flexible architecture. Rewards: Michelin giving back to open source community via 4 KIPs and open sourcing Kstreamplify, ns4kafka demonstrate easily the enthusiasm and the benefits we find.

The IT organization has created specific roles to promote, internally, a technical expert and a champion of the approach. This initiative aims to support the organization's organic growth.

‍

In IT few figures:

Between 2021 and 2025 from 30 projects using Kafka to 210.
Between 2021 and 2025 from 1To of data to 5To.

Business Testimony on a Supply Chain Orchestrator:

“…Run cost divided by 3, Efficiency to deliver divided by 5, Releases in Zero downtime, Attractivity, Proud of what we achieved, No major incident from the GoLive, Image: from Ugly ducking to a proud swan…”

‍

Additional links:

‍