Germany’s Continental says it is expanding the global manufacturing footprint of its specialty tyres business area in Sri Lanka. By further enhancing local pre-production capacities, its Kalatura plant in future may produce material handling tyres self-sufficiently. This ensures an optimised manufacturing process and limits cross-country dependencies in logistic supply chain, it furthers.
Continental adds it will be investing around EUR13 million over the next three years, creating around 200 additional jobs. Customers will benefit from better product availability due to the optimised supply chain.
“Our Kalutara plant is an integral part of our global production network. The most recent investment decision is a testament to that. At Kalutara we manufacture tailor-made specialty tyre products for our customers worldwide,” says Klaus Framenau, Head of Business Field Material Handling.
Continentals Material Handling Business Field is looking to further expand its share of the growth markets worldwide. “We continue to systematically grow our Specialty Tires business, as laid out in our Vision 2030 strategy program.”
Since 2009, the Kalutara plant has produced industrial solid tyres for forklifts and other material handling vehicles. The plant manufactures Press-on-Band tyres and Super Elastic tyres with a strong focus on serving American, Asian and selected European markets.
With its specialty tyre brands Continental, General Tire and Barum that cover a wide range of applications, Continental adds it serves the many different requirements of its customers worldwide.
Meanwhile in related news, Continental has officially opened a fully automated high-bay warehouse at the tyre production plant in Otrokovice, Czech Republic. It has a storage capacity of more than 930,000 tyres. With the facility, it is centralising its warehouses in the area of Otrokovice. As a result, Continental’s logistics processes could be further optimised while lowering CO2 emissions of its operations.
The new warehouse is 43 m high – which equals approximately to the height of the Statue of Liberty in New York, US. On an area of 10,000 sq m, the building can store more than 930,000 tyres. High racks with small aisles allow vertical and horizontal storage. Mobile stackers automatically move the tyres stored on pallets around the warehouse area.
The electricity used to power the warehouse derives from renewable sources. As it is the case at all Continental production facilities worldwide since late 2020, in accordance with the criteria of the global RE100 initiative.
Continental adds it consistently invests in the digitalisation and automation of its global manufacturing operations at its 20 tyre plants in 16 countries worldwide. By 2050 at the latest, the tyre manufacturer aims to achieve 100% climate neutrality along its entire value chain.