Enthusiasm about the use of artificial intelligence in the manufacturing sector is growing. But behind the understandable excitement there is also a great deal of hesitancy and confusion. To offer a tyre industry perspective, Hizmy Hassen, Chief Digital Officer and Supply Chain Officer at Apollo Tyres Ltd, shares his thoughts on AI and its role in manufacturing.
This year isn’t just the 50th anniversary of Cimcorp – 2025 marks 15 years since the company delivered its very first fully integrated Dream Factory solution. The customer was a “major tyre manufacturer” in India, and it has followed this with a further 308 solutions within the tyre and automotive industries.
In February 2024, directors of Maxxis visited the rulers of the Ukanku Community in the Ukwa East region of Nigeria. According to local Nigerian media Business Day, Maxxis executives inspected the land where they were “preparing to build a tyre factory.” Another media outlet, The Cable, stated that Maxxis announced “plans” to build a local tyre manufacturing plant.
The Aeolus giant tyre project has completed all approval procedures and is expected to start construction in June 2024. The project is in Aeolus’ western factory in Jiaozuo. It plans to build a new production plant and power station and add giant tyre building and vulcanisation equipment. The construction period of the project is 24 months. After completion, it will be able to add 20,000 giant engineering radial tyre production capacity every year.
Linglong Tire is relocating the production of truck tyres for the European market to its newly inaugurated factory in Serbia from their previous production base in China and Thailand, Tyrepress sister website Reifenpresse reports. According to the Chinese manufacturer, the Serbia plant is “one of the most modern tyre factories in the world.” With four new tyre series and a total of 47 new products or product sizes, the product range includes truck tyres for all purposes, all of which were “developed specifically for the European market.” Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić told Chinese media that Linglong could become the country’s “fifth or sixth-largest exporter” thanks to the new plant.
In June 2020, India’s government introduced new legislation that significantly limited tyre imports into the country, with companies intending to do so requiring a license. As one of many manufacturers affected by this rule, Michelin scaled back its imports of passenger tyres and limited these to selected products for performance cars. Further expansion in India will require local production, and the question for Michelin doesn’t seem to be if, but rather when.
Bridgestone’s Shimonoseki and Kitakyushu tyre plants in Japan are now equipped with solar power systems. With a combined generation capacity of 5.8 MW, these systems will supply electricity to produce tyres at the two sites. Bridgestone speaks of an annual CO2 reduction of around 2,700 tonnes.
LUC is the latest product from German laser systems specialist 4Jet Group. Informing tyre makers of this new solution that replaces grinding-based mechanical reworking, 4Jet states that LUC utilises “digital, precise and touchless” post-processing to improve the uniformity of tyre beads.
Global tyre businesses have exited the Russian tyre business as a direct consequence of the Russian government’s decision to invade Ukraine. We all knew this was coming, following initial announcements from the likes of Michelin, Bridgestone and Nokian along those lines in the second quarter of 2022. However, the news that Nokian sold its much-lauded St. Petersburg operation to Tatneft at the end of October indicates that the exodus is underway. And that, in turn, means significant tyre production capacity within Russia has changed hands, something that has an inevitable impact on those departing, those remaining and the wider tyre business. In this column, we take a look at how Michelin, Bridgestone and Nokian have been negotiating their respective exits from Russia and ask what it might mean for the future.
Guangrao County in Dongying City seems to have gone silent in a short period. On October 20, Guangrao detected an asymptomatic case of Covid-19. Then things seemed to get serious. Data from the Dongying Municipal Health Commission showed that from the 22 to the 30, new asymptomatic patients of Covid-19 were found in Guangrao daily. The government launched a response policy in a short time. According to Guangrao residents, since the 23, some communities have asked people to stay at home, and some factories require closed-loop management.
Hankook’s Tyre Manufacturer of the Year winning entry at the NTDA Tyre Industry Awards “demonstrated, in great detail, its growing marketplace leadership in product, performance, innovation, productivity and sustainability,” according to NTDA chief executive Stefan Hay. The award was presented to Hankook Tyre UK’s sales director Paul Emery and marketing & communications manager Zoë Baldwin. Emery said: “We are a relatively small team at Hankook and are extremely proud that the UK tyre industry has recognised the strength of the Hankook business. This is truly a team effort and a team award.”
Passenger car and light truck (PCLT) tyre production trends in Western Europe have been scaling down over the long-term. The move to larger production facilities in the comparatively low-cost labour markets in Eastern Europe, or greater reliance on imports from Asia, has seen a steady stream of plant closures and conversions to speciality, short-run production capacity – on in the case of Cooper Tire’s UK plant, for example, one followed by the other – in the region. A new assessment of the most recent three-year period by tyre industry analyst Astutus Research suggests that the overall picture has been of a decline similar to the period following the 2008 financial crisis, which was itself a catalyst for this trend. Yet digging a little deeper into the figures shows several dynamics at play in European PCLT tyre production, including supply chain disruption and spiralling energy costs. For comprehensive analysis of global tyre market trends, a series of reports by Astutus Research are available to buy now in the Tyrepress Reports Shop – click here for more details.
German rubber industry association wdk is “sounding the alarm” as massive increases in the cost of energy, raw materials and logistics take their toll upon companies within the industry, draining their liquidity and straining earnings. The wdk warns of impending insolvencies, a concretisation of relocation plans and job cuts.
Although Chinese factories produced significantly fewer tyres in the first half of 2022 than in the same period last year, monthly figures released by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics show a return to year-on-year growth in June. A total of 76.98 million tyres were manufactured within China last month, a 1.2 per cent year-on-year increase and 6.75 million more than were produced in May 2022.
Since March 2022, China’s government has imposed strict lockdown policies on several cities in response to the rapid spread of COVID-19. Shanghai, the economic centre of China, is one of the core lockdown areas. According to information available to Tyrepress, it appears the entire industry is feeling the restrictions hitting production, logistics and retail in Shanghai and surrounding cities.
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Maxxis
Jiaozuo Daily
Egor Fin; Unsplash
Xuda Wang
NTDA
