Goodyear´s tire manufacturing evolving

COLMAR-BERG, Luxembourg (Feb. 21)—Goodyear is integrating hot-forming and injection molding of components into its global tire manufacturing process to improve quality and cut costs, the company has revealed. Hot-forming, a pre-assembly process involving up to seven extruded components, is part of Goodyear´s Integrated Manufacturing Precision Assembled Cellular Technology system now in use at plants in Colmar-Berg; Napanee, Ontario; and Danville, Va. Although IMPACT is not a complete re-design of the tire-building process, the system, still in development, does offer cost, speed and quality advantages, company engineers said during a recent tour of the Colmar-Berg truck tire plant. In a separate development, Goodyear is injection molding truck tire bead and apex assemblies using induction heating of the bead wires to cure rubber from the inside out. This assembly, which is removed at about 90 percent of cure, eases handling and placement of the package at the building station, Goodyear said.