THE TYRE division of Continental AG is allocating an estimated EUR40 million for its global expansion plans at its Korbach (Hesse) site in 2018, and as part of its Vision 2025 strategy.
The firm says that the investment will not only be used to set up a specialist production line for passenger/light truck 19- to 22-inch tyres but will also be channeled to the central development of the process technology required to manufacture them.
“With this investment, we are taking deliberate action to scale up our investment programme in the further development of product-specific expertise in tyre design, tread, contours, and compounds, as well as in the expansion of our global tyre production capacity. In bundling our expertise at the Korbach site, we will also be taking away some of the burden on our other production sites in a bid to drive forward the development of new high-tech processes for our tyre plants worldwide from a central location. Increasing our investment in new, highly efficient tyre testing technology such as the AIBA, for example, will help us to further improve our technological position,” says Nikolai Setzer, Executive Board member for the Tyre division at Continental.
Besides the Automated Indoor Braking Analyzer (AIBA) – the world’s first-ever fully automated indoor tyre testing facility at the corporation’s very own test track (the Contidrom) to the north of Hanover – and the ongoing ContiLifeCycle plant project for truck tyre retreading and rubber recycling in Hanover-Stöcken, the investment in Korbach is the company’s strategic planning and systematic implementing of technological innovation.
Plant Manager Lothar Salokat informs that the investment would have created 60 new jobs by 2018.
He says that they are looking at starting production in 2016 and increasing the production volume to around 400,000 U-UHP tyres by 2018.
“Our Continental team in Korbach, which – when we include the Tyre Distribution Center and ContiTech – now totals a workforce of more than 3,000 people, has proven time and again not only that it is highly flexible and extremely motivated but is also capable of responding to immense challenges,” he says.