Continental Tire Expands US Facility

Continental, a premium tire manufacturer, has added a Pre-Cured Tread (PCT) manufacturing facility to its existing campus in Mount Vernon, Ill.

The new plant, which began start-up production in January, will produce made-in-the-USA tread rubber for the ContiTread premium retread line. Continental expects the plant to reach full operation by the end of the first quarter of 2018.

The new PCT facility features a technologically advanced manufacturing process to maximize safety for plant personnel and quality of the pre-cured tread rubber. A specialized cooling tower helps to stabilize the tread compound more quickly, and robotic assistance on the tread press helps prevent distortion of the product for more consistent filling of the mold. In addition, the production line features a prototype technology to provide more consistent texture in large-lug tread patterns.

“Continental is investing in the latest advances in retread manufacturing technology to ensure our pre-cured tread rubber is the best on the market, and that our people have a safe and ergonomically efficient workspace,” said John Barnes, Continental’s head of ContiLifeCycle™ retreading for the Americas. “As a technology company, we’re always looking to see what’s next on the horizon, whether for manufacturing or fleet solutions like digital tire monitoring. We want to deliver the best value to our customers by capitalizing on the latest innovations in the industry.”

As part of Continental’s commitment to the quality of its retread rubber, each new tread pattern produced in the start-up phase must be meticulously measured and reviewed by the company’s Research & Development team. Each pattern requires over 150 points of measurement to be submitted for approval, before it can be released into the market.

“Continental continuously strives for best-in-class performance. The cornerstone of this performance is commitment to outstanding quality,” said Catherine Loss, Continental’s head of retread worldwide. “When designing this new Pre-Cured Tread plant, we focused on utilizing lessons learned from our existing plant in Morelia, Mexico, to optimize the layout and flow of the plant, and our long years of manufacturing experience in the main Mount Vernon plant to ensure reliability and repeatability in the production.”

 

Category: General Update, News, Wheels & Tires