Tires: A legacy industry in a 4.0 flux

AKRON—The tire manufacturing industry is in transition, shedding the inefficiencies of yesterday's basic computerization models and moving toward next-generation automation, AI and digital platforms—all foundations of Industry 4.0.

While the panacea of "lights-out" production is achievable, the level of automation that exists today—and more importantly, to what degree a plant employs modernized equipment and smart software—varies widely depending on the age of the plant.

"You would be shocked at how non-automated some of it still is," Kathryn Houk, director of the tire and rubber industry vertical at Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation for the last two years, told Rubber News.

Houk previously worked for Goodyear in tire manufacturing, specifically in machine procurement from companies like Epe, Netherlands-based VMI Group.

"VMI makes the most advanced tire-building machines in the world," Houk said. "They changed the game when it comes to tire assembly."

But tire is a legacy industry, with plants built 100 years ago and a work force that pushes 60 years for its average age.

"You'll see everything from a VMI machine—this amazing piece of technology—right next to a manual tire building machine ... wrapping the tire, cutting it with a hot knife," Houk said. "You'll see both in the same building sometimes."

Ironically, Tier 2 and 3 tire OEs tend to have a greater degree of modernization, Houk said, as the deep histories of Michelin, Bridgestone, Goodyear and Continental also bring an incongruous mix of legacy and Industry 4.0 technologies.

To this point, though, "eyes-off" operations in the tire making space have increased, and "hands-on" operations have drastically decreased, in both production and quality control.

"Compared to 20 years ago, tire manufacturing has changed tremendously," David Poling, vice president of research and development and technical services at Giti's Tire R&D Center North America Inc., told Rubber News. "The industry was still in the Industry 3.0 phase, which began in the 1970s with computer systems—but they were stand-alone systems not fully integrated into the actual manufacturing equipment as compared to today."

Industry 4.0 began around 2015, Poling said, just as Giti was planning its new plant in South Carolina.

"Giti was very forward thinking and planned for this new phase to maximize our advantage of a much more automated and integrated system," he said. "This included the latest in automated equipment from premier suppliers right here in America and around the globe."

To wit, upgrading and retrofitting an existing production facility with modern, automated equipment can cost far more than building a greenfield plant stocked with new tire-making machines—just the sorts of machines offered by VMI.

"In the coming years (there) will be new algorithms for smart software," Harm Voortman, CEO and president at VMI Group, told Rubber News during an April 26 conference at Firestone Country Club in Akron. "And the end-goal in all of this is to produce tires in a more sustainably efficient way, more quickly and at a higher quality."

The half-day conference, titled "Sustainability, Automation and Innovation in Tire Building Moving Forward," drew representatives from major tire manufacturers and custom compounders alike.

"You work with a lot of capital in your facilities that cannot be changed overnight," Voortman told an audience of about 60 people. "You need the software knowledge and you need the process knowledge—we can help there. But the tire processing side is where you come into play.

"Where are the main difficulties along your production line? Let's see if we can support you in those points, in getting you more flexible."

Giti's upgrades in South Carolina also include co-location and integration of R&D into the plant, Poling said.

Poling said the Singapore-based tire maker already is immersed in Industry 4.0, using IoT, connectivity and large data modeling, cloud computing, real-time analytics, human-machine interaction, robotics and the initial stages of AI.

"Automation and AI give us a huge advantage, allowing Giti to maximize efficiency in both design and manufacturing to deliver a world class Tier 1 tire to both the OE and replacement market in the most cost-effective manner," Poling said. "It provides consistency in production processes and maximizes uniformity."

Tires are "not glamorous," Poling said, though they do represent some of the most complex chemical and engineering feats in the world.

And VMI experts note that fewer human "hands-on" operators is a good thing in maintaining tire quality.

"We want our innovations to meet the challenges our customers currently are facing," said Jan Grashuis, vice president of product management for VMI. "It is very hard to find operators, so you want to find a machine that requires as few people as possible. If you want to be competitive in every area of the world, run a production with fewer people."

Poling believes a skilled work force still will be necessary—albeit in a different capacity.

"In another 20 years, a greenfield plant will be fully immersed in Industry 4.0, utilizing AI systems to drive every aspect of tire design and manufacturing," he said. "This will require the workforce to employ more people with the skills to drive and troubleshoot not only the systems, but the equipment.

"We need to continue innovating our designs and manufacturing by recruiting the best and brightest that will be needed to realize Industry 4.0 to its fullest potential."

VMI, the largest producer of tire production equipment in the world, remains on the cutting edge of tire manufacturing by offering machinery and components for rubber mill room production, component manufacturing, tire building, tire and compound testing, and retreading services.

From its Unixx Belt Maker, to the innovative Revolute machine and its Exxium and Maxx tire building machines, the company offers an array of whirring, buzzing and repetitive robotic systems that showcase the future of tire building.

As such, the company continues to redefine itself by integrating (and updating) AI and smart software on its products, innovations that will drive tire manufacturing for decades to come, according to Voortman.

In fact, Voortman believes that three overarching trends—sustainbility, flexibility and automation—are driving a majority of the changes in the tire manufacturing industry today.

"The EU is very ambitious when it comes to sustainability with the Green Deal," Voortman said. "This is a way forward to make sure Europe is completely climate-neutral by 2050.

"This can be difficult, dealing with legislation, housing, banks, financing—there is a whole (business) environment that needs to be climate-neutral. This forces all companies in Europe to make a plan ... where you are held accountable for that plan."

Voortman said VMI "is more ambitious" with its own goals.

"We have said we will be carbon-neutral by 2030," he said April 26. "But in the supply chain, quite a lot has to be done to achieve that."

So what does this mean for tire-making companies?

"In my view, this is an opportunity for companies who know what they are doing to make tires more sustainable, using different materials and tire technologies," Voortman said. "Sustainability drives the behavior of consumers as well. I really think in a few years companies will base the entirety of their decisions on these initiatives."

Secondly, machine flexibility remains key in producing different types of tires with less downtime and material usage, Grashuis said.

"For more than a decade, SKUs have increased," Grashuis said. "You need the least amount of time possible (for the tire-making machine) in changing from one type of tire to another. Overall, demands for automotive are getting stricter ... and tires are getting bigger and harder to build.

"You need the equipment to support these accurate processes."

Voortman said introducing flexibility into tire-making systems can be difficult and extremely valuable.

"What you want are systems that are automated—and can handle all kinds of different things in an automatic way," he said. "What we think is the way forward is to make use of very smart solutions and software that can help."

For example, VMI uses AI in foreign object detection and in retreading operations, often the most complex, engineered portion of a tire.

"As the algorithm detects the foreign matter, the operator can stop the machine and decide what to do," Grashuis said. "And that is really the mark of a modern, competent operator, to recognize the algorithm and make a decision from there."

Reshoring has been another major trend, as high costs for transportation, trade barriers and geopolitical issues have forced companies to relocate closer to their markets—and in tire sales, that means North America and Europe.

The trade-off is that these companies return to areas of higher-cost production.

"The timing between production and landing in the market can be very long," Voortman said of overseas, and specifically Asian, production. "To react quickly, you need to be closer to your markets. And producing in higher-cost areas means that automation is needed."

With wildly varying levels of automation across tire plants globally, digitization and advanced analytics can help even the playing field.

Rockwell Automation has built its portfolio on easing the entry points to autonomy and AI for many industries, including tire manufacturing. The company specializes in digitization and advanced analytics platforms for material handling, warehousing and process engineering systems, among many other production points.

"All tire accounts—even with the Big 5 or so—are very different," said Steven Nguyen, global digital services sales executive with Rockwell. "And there are major differences in tire manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia. Especially in Japan and Asia, it is a different culture, and they are very skilled workers. They tend to stay in their roles for a very long time and become masters at their machinery."

A newer, less permanent and more selective work force dominates in North America, making legacy knowledge in a legacy industry much more difficult to pass down.

And therein lies the need for autonomy and automation in production, Nguyen said.

"For North American manufacturers, it is important to shift to autonomy," he said. "Whereas automation was the entry point 10 years ago, in another five or 10 years the entry point will be digitization and autonomy. Even with skilled work forces, the shift is toward autonomy.

"And companies will have to find ways to employ it in production to even be a future player in the tire space."

Essentially, autonomy means equipping operators to be change agents and data experts.

"They need to be able to look at correlations between variables in extrusion, for instance, and say, we want to autonomize the target weight," Nguyen said. "If you change RPMs or other, different variables, we can control weight. That data is sent to the operator who then can say 'yes' or 'no.' "

Nguyen added that autonomy will shift the industry work force, perhaps reduce it, but not eliminate it.

And the data roadmap that Rockwell offers can assist companies at just about any level of automation.

"We do optimization, reducing that barrier to entry into autonomy," Nguyen said. "Digitization means aggregation, contextualization and employment of data. While trying to contextualize all data is a big endeavor, we encourage companies to start small, with a minimum viable product."

By applying autonomy to one asset (or tire-making machine or process) at a time, companies can build automation and machine-learning, asset-by-asset.

"Even with older machines, the data exists," Nguyen said. "It just needs to be contextualized. Then we can harness and employ AI in different ways.

"All of these innovations are part of Industry 4.0."

Giti's Poling said the South Carolina passenger tire plant was designed to take full advantage of automation in tire manufacturing.

"Everything is connected through our Manufacturing Execution System, from raw material receiving to final inspection," Poling said. "The MES system is also connected to the R&D department where all tire specifications for the plant are created. Scheduling of the plant is also handled dynamically through the MES system to maximize the efficiency minute-by-minute."

All raw materials, finished components and green tires flow through various automated storage and retrieval systems that are connected through MES.

"Terabytes of data flow from every process, every second, providing complete traceability and data analytics to improve processes, tire design and uniformity," Poling said.

Giti also is developing AI systems to assist in design and analysis of tires and the company's manufacturing processes.

"The MES system allows us to monitor every process, integrating data in real time to make data driven decisions," Poling said. "Everyone has full visibility and transparency for all processes across the organization and these are reviewed constantly by the team to maximize quality and efficiency as well as reduce waste."

Rockwell's Houk added that digitization and autonomy are "past the point of proof of concept."

The Milwaukee automation firm entered a partnership last year with Michelin to improve the world's largest tire maker's automation platforms.

"Not every case will have that return on investment," she said. "Digital transformation is at every level of a company, and it is something that is really hard to wrap your head around. But the fact that Michelin is so far down the path of digitization that they are doing a press release on who their digital partner is says something about Michelin.

"Where are we in another 30 years? Fully lights-out automation is possible, yes. None of these things are problems that cannot be solved. But are we there now? Not yet in tire manufacturing. Efficient operations are what is being sought today, doing more with less."