New Production System From Sumitomo

Sumitomo Rubber Industries has revealed details of its new tyre production system, called Taiyo (“the sun”). It is a fully automatic system, integrating all the production process, from component preparation to tyre curing, into one cell.SRI began development of a prototype system back in 1996 and began producing tyres four years later at its Nagoya plant.

To date, half a million tyres have been produced using the Taiyo system and sold into the Japanese replacement market. Another Taiyo system was installed a few months ago in SRI’s Shirakawa factory at Fukushima.The system, says SRI, is extremely flexible and up to 1,000 tyres, in eight different sizes, can be produced daily.

The tyres are produced with no joints and, again according to SRI, the high speed uniformity and balance of Taiyo tyres is up to 50 per cent better than for tyres produced by conventional means. Taiyo means that the space required for tyre manufacturing is greatly reduced, plus it is environmentally friendly, reducing energy consumption by 35 per cent. The tyres are also 5 per cent lighter than conventionally-produced products, due largely to the increased accuracy of controlling rubber thickness.

SRI is currently developing its second Taiyo, which will go into operation at the Shirakawa factory this August, and a third Taiyo, which will be used to produce SUV and runflat tyres, beginning the following June. This will be installed in the Izumi-Ohtsu factory of SRI group company Ohtsu Tire. Sumitomo Rubber Industries is planning to use Taiyo to make motorcycle tyres and radial truck tyres “in the near future”.