CUSTOMER CASE STUDY—
Optimized material flows drive 50% production growth at Tigar Tyres Pirot
Tigar Tyres, a member of the Michelin Group, implemented a major expansion of its factory in Pirot, Serbia, with the aim of increasing production capacity by 50 percent and achieving 100 percent traceability.
Headquartered in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Michelin is present in more than 170 nations, has 112,300 employees and operates 68 production plants in 17 different countries.
The Challenge
At its Pirot plant, 300km southeast of Belgrade, Tigar manufactures entry-level passenger car and light truck tires that are sold under Michelin’s Tigar, Kormoran, Riken and Taurus brands.
Due to rapid expansion of the entry-level market – especially in Central and Eastern Europe – Tigar wanted to invest in state-of-the-art production and handling systems that would enable annual capacity to be increased from 8 million to 12 million tires.
At the same time, the company wanted the modernization of the plant to improve product quality and ensure traceability. Tigar therefore sought out the very latest in automation and control technology for Pirot.
The Solution
Having delivered several robotic systems to the Michelin Group for the storage and palletization of finished tires, Cimcorp seemed a natural choice as logistics automation partner.
Cimcorp’s Dream Factory solution delivered efficient automation of the material flows in the tire-building and curing areas, as well as in the nishing and palletizing area, for three production lines at Pirot.
With the first tire being produced from the new plant within nine months of Cimcorp receiving the order from Tigar, the schedule to design, manufacture, install and commission the automation was extremely tight.
Cimcorp’s automation offered us a complete and efficient solution that would mean quality, speed, flexibility and cost control, thereby helping us reach our production targets and satisfy client demands.
Pirot Plant Director, Tigar Tyres, Serbia
CIMCORP’S HANDLING SOLUTION for the Pirot plant features conveyor, monorail, and robotic technologies. Green tires are transferred by conveyor from the building machines to the spraying stations and then to an automatic green tire buffer served by gantry robots.
When specific green tires are required by the curing presses, the robots pick them from the buffer and they are transported via monorail to the curing presses.
AFTER CURING, the Cimcorp systems collect tires from the trench conveyor, place them on the cooling conveyor, and then transfer them to the visual inspection area.
They then enter the testing buffer and are transferred to the testing machines before proceeding to the labeling area, the palletizing buffer, and the palletizing area.
Here, the optimal palletizing method for each product type is automatically calculated, and robots arrange the tires in a space-optimized rick-rack pattern.
THE ENTIRE MATERIAL FLOW – from raw materials to finished tires – is controlled by Cimcorp’s Manufacturing Execution System (MES), which operates under Tigar’s host ERP.
MES takes care of all tasking so that forklift drivers receive instructions regarding where, when, and in what quantity materials should be delivered to the production machines.
An electronic Kanban system schedules the just-in-time manufacturing, providing plans for each machine that operators can follow and warning if some materials will be missing so that the schedule can be adjusted.
MES ensures full traceability by automatically collecting process data – such as the ID of raw materials and operators – from all machinery. If any defects are detected during the inspection stages, their source can be traced and the defective materials or products removed.
The benefits and key results
Under its ambitious project, Tigar Tyres succeeded in implementing a major upgrade of its Pirot factory, transforming it into one of the most modern tire factories in the world. Cimcorp’s Dream Factory solution has helped Tigar achieve higher levels of efficiency, lower operating costs, improved quality, and full traceability at its Serbian plant.
GROWTH IN PRODUCTION CAPACITY was achieved at Pirot, as planned. With 100% availability of both green tires at the curing presses and finished tires at other process machinery, utilization of valuable process equipment is optimized, raising production output. In addition, streamlined material flows allow buffering to be minimized and manufacturing efficiency to be maximized.
100 PERCENT TRACEABILITY OF TIRES is ensured through tracing of production data, recipe management, and reporting by Cimcorp’s MES. In this way, tracing ensures that the highest quality standards are always maintained, enhancing customer satisfaction.
HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY is achieved through the improved material flow that results from Cimcorp’s MES. The tracing undertaken by MES also provides a constant flow of utilization data, which is invaluable in terms of the continuing drive to increase plant efficiency.
LOWER COSTS result from the MES for a number of reasons. It enables buffer stores to be smaller, work-in-progress to be reduced, and production processes to be error-proofed, resulting in lower wastage of raw materials and semi-finished products.