Sumitomo debuts ‘ultra-high precision’ manufacturing system

Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the first car tyre manufactured in Japan. Sumitomo claims the honour of producing this premiere Japanese tyre, and almost a century on the company reports it has finished developing a whole new tyre manufacturing system, which it calls NEO-T01. This new system has been created “in the pursuit of ultra-high precision tyre production technology,” said Sumitomo.

The technology has its roots in the development of Sumitomo’s “Taiyo” space-saving, fully automated production system, which began in 1996. The tyre maker says Taiyo has continually evolved and expanded over the last 16 years and produced more than 36 million tyres in total. Taiyo is represented in the new technology’s acronymic name: NEO stands for Next (generation), Elaborate and Orb, while the letter ‘T’ means taiyo – Japanese for sun – as well as technology and tyre. The numerals ‘01’ stand for “for the ‘first iteration’ of our next generation manufacturing system,” Sumitomo added.

Work on NEO-T01 began several years ago. “Our company has worked tirelessly to advance the state of tyre production technology over the course of a century,” the tyre maker shared in a press statement. “Nevertheless, with the progress of motorisation showing no end in sight, we anticipate that tyre performance demands will continue to grow ever higher in the future. Therefore, our company undertook a new project in 2008 with the aim of developing a new manufacturing system, one that would surpass Taiyo to achieve ultra-high precision. This project has recently culminated in the development of our next-generation manufacturing system, NEO-T01.”

NEO-T01 incorporates three key technologies: Metal Core Process, Fully Automatic Connected Control and High-Rigidity Structure.

Sumitomo calls Metal Core Process the “greatest feature of “NEO-T01.” It explains that tyres are formed using a cylindrical drum in conventional manufacturing systems, with each of the tyre’s components affixed to this drum and joined together to form a tyre. “By contrast, in order to achieve ultra-high precision for NEO-T01, we have developed the ‘Metal Core Process,’ a tyre manufacturing process in which the various components of a tyre are affixed to a metal former (core) that has been made in the exact shape and size of an actual finished tyre’s interior.”

The second of these key technologies, Fully Automatic Connected Control, is said to achieve significant weight reduction by allowing for the optimal distribution of weight among tyre components. “This is made possible through the use of a computer control system that manages every step of the tyre-forming process – from the formation and processing of strip components to their affixation to the metal core – with high precision, accurate to 0.01mm.”

The third of these key technologies, High-Rigidity Structure, allows for the use of harder stiffening materials than those that have been usable in conventional tyre manufacturing systems. “This is achieved by performing the entire tyre production process, from formation to vulcanisation, around a metal core that has been made to match the exact shape and size of the tyre’s design. With this innovation, we have succeeded in significantly reducing tyre deformation during high-speed driving.”

By combining these three key technologies, Sumitomo says NEO-T01 is able to produce higher performance tyres, achieving a 70 per cent improvement in terms of “high-speed uniformity,” a ten per cent weight reduction and a 50 per cent reduction in “deformation during high-speed driving” compared with conventional tyre manufacturing systems.

The first commercial product based on the NEO-T01 system is planned for 2014. Sumitomo says this initial tyre line will be a “next-generation run-flat tyre that provides an excellent balance between lightness, safety and driving comfort.”