Cimcorp aims technology to boost efficiency at tire plants

GRIMSBY, Ontario—Cimcorp Automation Ltd. views itself as a pioneer in automating the material handling operations of a tire factory, and the firm believes it has the technology and track record to back that up.

The Grimsby-based firm has been in the tire business for more than 35 years, and its solutions can be implemented in new plants and also utilized to upgrade brownfield sites to make them more productive and efficient, according to Sales Manager Don Heelis.

Cimcorp Automation is part of Cimcorp Group, which employs about 300 and also includes Cimcorp Oy in Finland. Besides its focus on filling tire factory needs, it also offers logistics automation in the retail, food and beverage, postal and car manufacturing sectors.

Heelis said the company has been active globally, with the Americas, Europe and Asia each accounting for roughly a third of revenues. Cimcorp has a physical presence in each of the three regions, including facilities for engineering, equipment building and sales.

Some of the sites are Centers of Excellence, Heelis said, which concentrate on specific technologies that are then exported to wherever needed.

For new tire factories, the firm markets what it has branded the Cimcorp Dream Factory, which it touts as a fully automated handling solution for tire manufacturing and distribution.

Cimcorp's technology breaks down the material handling functions into these elements: raw material or component preparation; tire building; green tire buffering; storage and retrieval; green tire curing; final finish and palletizing; and order fulfillment.

"In each of those areas, we're bringing new technology to manage the material handling," Heelis said. "Essentially we're automating those processes but not only the handling aspect of it, but also the logistic component as well. It gives you the ability to track and trace the product, and know the status in real time within the different areas of your production environment."

Tire makers typically would engage Cimcorp during the plant design phase, he said. That enables the end user to understand the requirements clearly from an automation point of view. "We can actually help them develop a more efficient plant layout if we're involved at that point of the process," the Cimcorp official said.

The sales pitch is different from traditional deals. "It's a very unique sales process," Heelis said. "You're not making a sales pitch. You're working at a level of interaction. It's a process where the latest technologies and ideas are merged with what the customer is trying to do."

Response has been positive to the Dream Factory, with the system implemented in some shape or form in new tire factories across all regions of the globe in recent years, said Heelis. He added that not all jobs are for a complete Dream Factory; some may be for individual elements.

It essentially can be configured to match the needs of a particular project. "We've got all these building blocks, and depending on how we put these building blocks together, we can construct a tailored solution for that customer out of those standard building blocks," he said.

The intent is to use automation to increase the efficiency and throughput of the facility, with the result being a factory that is a low-cost, high-quality producer. Heelis said there is a learning curve, but that customers normally find that once the first module is implemented, the process goes quicker from there. It can be utilized in both high-volume tire factories along with plants that make a variety of products.

While all of the new tire capacity coming on line in North America and elsewhere has been a benefit to Cimcorp, he said this also puts pressure on legacy brownfield sites to use automation to remain competitive. The company has been able to take its modules and implement them in older facilities.

The older tire plants, particularly those in North America have a lot of challenges in terms of implementing automation. And subsequent expansions were built based on available real estate rather than in terms of production flow or layout.

"When those factories were built and designed, automation was never on the radar screen," Heelis said. "No one ever had done any planning in terms of plant layouts to accommodate automation. You have to deal with what's there, which for the most part is automation unfriendly."

Cimcorp, though, has been able to develop solutions and apply its technology to get around those barriers. "The idea is to bring automation to bear to deal with those issues," he said. "We have to find a way of connecting the automation modules. If you can go in a straight line between point A and point B, it's easy to make a connection. But typically it's not a straight line. There are a lot of doglegs, U-turns and barriers you have to get around."

The company has done work at most of the legacy tire factories in North America. When working with brownfield sites, Heelis said usually the customer approaches Cimcorp and asks what can be done to improve a site. The two discuss the situation, and Cimcorp will receive input from the people at the facility.

"It can take some time to that," he said. "There's a process we'll follow, and ultimately we'll come up with a solution that will make that plant more efficient and more productive."