Global tyre manufacturing giant, Continental Tyre has decided to ramp-up its production with the introduction of continental's new digital tools to help dealers in their efforts to service fleets more efficiently by 2021 says Tom Fanning, Head of U.S market for truck tyres- Continental Tyre.
Increasing the production at Commercial truck tyre plant is indeed a tough task. However, it is believed to yield better profits and customer satisfaction which is why $1.4 billion facility in Clinton, Miss. will be considered as a top priority, he says.
“We’ve been very cognizant about bringing the plant online carefully,” says Fanning. “To get production industrialized, to get people trained - there’s been a huge amount of effort. But to bring (the plant) online and ramping it up in 2021 and 2022 is extremely exciting for us.”
According to the tyre maker, currently, the Clinton plant has the capacity to build 750,000 medium truck and bus tyres per year. However, with the introduction of continental's new digital tools, the company expects more growth and accelerated production.
Fanning says the facility will supplement production coming out of Continental’s plant in Mount Vernon, Ill., which is able to produce 10,300 truck tyre units per day at full throttle, according to MTD research.
The Mount Vernon plant, which also builds passenger and light truck tyres, “is ramping back up to 100% capacity,” says Fanning. “When the pandemic struck, our first concern was the safety of our employees. We ceased production for a couple of weeks.
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“We’re very big on in-market-for-the-market. We want tyres for North America produced in North America. Clinton is there to augment the production we have in Mount Vernon. We’ve spent a lot of money over the years developing and building out Mount Vernon.
“But we were better off building a new facility than trying to push more production out” the company’s Illinois facility.
“There’s plenty of room” for expansion in Clinton “and with our modular style, we can add on pretty easily. We have tremendous scalability there. This is a huge opportunity.”
Continental is said to grow better with what Fanning calls its “digital solutions package” which will be delivered by their network of dealers to help trucking fleets and other commercial tyre end users drive down their operating costs.
The goal, he says, “is to get every ounce of value” out of new tyres. “It’s the age-old question of acquisition versus life cycle cost.
“Obviously, we will continue to refine and deliver new products. We’re about to launch a new premium, long-haul steer tyre. But one of the complements, for us, is our digital solutions package.
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“You’ll see more about some of our ‘softer’ platforms coming out on the support side" during 2021, he explains. “That’s the difference between being a tyre company and a technology company. Changes in our tyre sensors and yard readers will become more robust and more rapid in the future.
“A service tech walking around a yard with an air gauge in hand when it’s 20 degrees is not a value-add. If we can see the temperature and pressure of every single tyre on a screen, that’s a different paradigm.
“And if we can automate that process, that will be a huge value-add for everyone in the chain," he explains. "When we rolled out our ContiTrack 2 system, we made it paramount that you do not leave the fleet yard until you (consult) with the fleet manager.”
Continental also offers ContiConnect, a portal that shows tyre pressure and temperature levels of tyres in a fleet, helping fleet managers to address tyre issues.
“It’s about real-time, actionable intelligence,” says Fanning.
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