5 ways Continental's new development center will boost its retread business

ROCK HILL, S.C.—Continental has been in the retreading business in its home European market for decades.

But it's only been active in the U.S. retreading sector since 2011, and the firm's Continental Tire the Americas L.L.C. unit knows it has a lot of ground to make up.

That's where its newly opened Continental Retread Solutions Development Center in Rock Hill comes in.

The development center will focus on retread process improvements and technology development, aiming to bring innovation and up-to-date processes to its Retread Solutions Partners and the fleets they serve.

The new center—located about 10 miles from Continental's tire headquarters in Fort Mill, S.C.—features technologies to help better serve the main challenges that retreading faces, including hands-on training that can be offered virtually; tracking and managing tire carcasses; and boosting the efficiency of retreading and supporting mega fleet businesses.

"This center gives us a unique opportunity to continue to make advancements in the retreading part of our business," said Shaun Uys, vice president of Conti's U.S. truck tires business. "Not only will we be able to continue to improve our process, but we can also now provide our Continental Retread Solutions Partners with hands-on training from miles away."
Rubber News was on hand for the official opening of the center on March 21, and here are five ways Conti officials say the center will benefit both it and its retread customers.

In the tire business, everything starts with the customer, Renato Sarzano, senior vice president for truck tires Americas, said at the opening.

"Starting with our core, excellent tires remain our DNA," he said. "Over time we realize, just the transaction—buying and selling tires—is not enough. We need to be a solutions provider."

That is definitely the case when dealing with truck tires.

"We work to be the most technically prepared company in terms of the support we can give," Sarzano said. "We need to know about fleets, we need to know about trucks, we need to know about tires. We need to know about everything, because that's what the customer expects."

The backbone of that is the ContiLifeCycle concept, that starts with a new tire produced with a 3G casing, and continues with the ContiTread retreads.

Uys said a premium tire supplier must be present in OE, and then be well-respected and have partnerships inside your fleet customers. He added that Conti makes a premium tire that meets fleet requirements and allows them to keep overall costs down.

"You need a retread process so they can use the casing over and over again in order to have low total operating cost," he said. "We have the ability to cover the fleets with a new tire that goes into OE all the way through the retread process until the tire comes out the other side."

Continental also plans well when a new truck tire is introduced, according to John Cox, head of Retread Americas within the firm's truck tire unit.

"One of the unique things Continental does is, when we develop a tire, we also develop a tread that goes along with it," Cox said at the opening. "So generally, when we release a tire into the market with a new product launch, six months later there will be a tread that follows.

"It's a great way we have combined our research and development into putting a lot of horsepower behind our retread abilities within Continental."

Like most tire makers, Conti has been focusing on sustainability in all parts of its business, with short-term targets for 2030 leading to longer-term goals for 2050. And retreading definitely fits in well with that.

"When I think about retreading, I think about it as one of the first green products" Cox said, noting that retreading started early in the 20th Century when there was a strain on raw materials. "They had to figure out a way to get more out of the tire, so retreading came about. It was one of the original sustainability projects."

The 3G casing also gives Conti an advantage, Uys said, as it is designed to be retreaded to extend the life of a tire, with a cradle-to-grave approach to tire management.

"It is a standardized casing that covers all the tire positions—steer, drive and the trailer. They work pretty much the same so you can have some standardization," he said.

The belt package is designed to reduce penetrations and damage, and the bead core is calculated to reduce deflection and heat build-up. Fuel savings results from the improved casing design, along with compounding designed to improve rolling resistance.

"If you manage your temperature, if you manage your pressures and you manage your footprint, you are going to get increased mileage," Uys said.

Conti said that reusing the casing saves energy and raw materials. The firm cited Tire Retread Information Bureau statistics, calculating that retreads in the U.S. and Canada save about 217.5 million gallons of oil and prevents up to 1.4 billion pounds of rubber being added to landfills on an annual basis.

Continental also leans into digital technology to ease concerns such as the original carcass being mixed in with other casings, which could lead to retreading the wrong carcass. To prevent this, the facility is testing a machine that scans the sidewall to track the carcass throughout the retread process.

RFID technology identifies the tire and automatically tracks it throughout the retread process. It then communicates with every other retread machine to guarantee the correct specifications are met and that the carcass gets the tread it needs. Throughout the tire's lifespan, owners can track the tread and carcass wear.

"You can order a tire and get it sensored on OE to your fleet directly. You just have to configure it and it goes into our landscape," Uys said. "You have an intelligent tire that gives you many benefits so we protect your casings as much as possible so that you can use it as many times (as possible). It ensures better retreadability."

Conti's retread development center is set up as a retread shop so the team can test new processes in the same environment that is used by the firm's Continental Retread Solutions Partners.

It also will allow the partners to be trained using the same equipment they use in their plants, and fleet owners can tour the center to see firsthand the retread technology that is used on their tires.

"We're looking at the products, we're looking at the process and we're looking at the data," Cox said. "This is the solutions development center here, and that is a primary motivation for us to attack these last two rungs: the process and the data.

"If you have the process without the data, you don't have the controls on that process. You have a piece of paper that says 'Process.' You have to have the controls to make sure that the process is being followed."

He said while it's a great place for training and tours for fleets and its retreading partners, about 90 percent of the activities at the center either will be on R&D, process development or machine development.

Cox said Conti also will look at machine automation in general. He's been around retreading for at least 30 years—with stints at dealers, fleets and manufacturers—so he said he has a pretty good idea about everything around retreads.

"One of the things I've noticed is that there hasn't been a whole lot of innovation since I was a young lad just starting," Cox said. "I think we have a great opportunity to do exactly that: automate some of the retread process here."

Michelin, Bridgestone and Goodyear—North America's three largest tire makers—also are the largest retreaders in the market today. Continental knows it has ground to make up, and company officials feel they finally are in a position to do just that.

Uys said Conti reaches retread customers in two ways: through dealer partners who use its system, equipment and software for the recycling process; and also through about 30 company-owned BestDrive L.L.C. locations.

The intent is to have retread centers conveniently located near fleet customers so they have a partner close by to meet their retreading needs.

"If we don't have a partner, we can do it ourselves," Uys said. "But the intention and the prime focus is to use partners."

Sarzano said the good thing is when you have a small market share, there is a lot of potential for growth. What Conti has done since setting up for retreading in the U.S. in 2011 is get ready. In terms of having the right products. In having the right performance for their products. And in having the right plants to efficiently produce the treads.

Now with the development center in Rock Hill, he said Conti finally is in a position where it is prepared for growth.

"We have plant capacity to produce more treads than we produce today," Sarzano said. "We have customers willing to convert and start with us. So I think now is the right time to announce that we are open for business."