Bridgestone’s new tyre building system has been awarded “Tire Manufacturing Innovation of the Year” in the 2017 Tire Technology International Awards for Innovation and Excellence.
The independent jury of 27 top tyre industry experts applauded Bridgestone’s achievement in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in a tyre manufacturing plant. The first application in 2016 at the Hikone plant in Japan proved so successful that was quickly decided to implement EXAMATION more widely. Subsequently, it is being introduced in the Tatabanya plant in Hungary and in the new plant in Russia.
Shunichi Yamazaki, president, Intelligent Vehicle Research Institute, Japan, and one of the panel of judges noted. “In Japan, a generation of highly skilled engineering workers has reached retirement age. It can be difficult to completely transfer the skills of highly technical workers to younger colleagues. This system proposed by Bridgestone is a useful substitute, preventing human error and improving efficiency and production quality. It measures no less than 480 points of quality data by sensors, and carries out automatic control in real time by artificial intelligence so that a tyre may be assembled in optimal conditions. It is expected that this type of intelligence technology will become an epochal system across all the manufacturing industries.”
The announcement was made at a gala ceremony during Tire Technology Expo in Hanover, Germany on February 15, where Emilio Tiberio, Head of R&D, Bridgestone EMEA region, received the award on behalf of the Bridgestone Corporation. He said, “We are very proud that the Examation tyre assembling system has been recognised with this prestigious award. We believe that the application of our ICT technology and AI to our production systems will create great benefits, and help us fulfil our commitment to ‘Serving Society with Superior Quality’”.
This is the 6th time that Bridgestone has won a Tire Technology award since the programme was introduced in 2008. In the inaugural year and in 2016 Bridgestone won the Tire Manufacturer of the Year award, followed by Technology awards for its Contact Area Information Sensing technology (CAIS) in 2012 and ologic reduced-rolling-resistance technology in 2013, and the Environmental Achievement of the Year award in 2013 for the new Americas Technical Center in the USA.