Resistance-to-change, skills-gap blocking ‘tire industry 4.0’

Cologne, Germany – Resistance to change has been identified as a major barrier to the adoption of new automation systems and technologies in tire-manufacture, industry leaders said at the Future Tire Conference, held 27-28 June in Cologne.

Issues around automation and Industry 4.0 were the focus of a keynote discussion panel at the opening day of the conference, where technology leaders within the tire industry gave their views on the way forward for digitalisation within the tire manufacturing industry.

“There’s always the risk that you would like to go with one OEM for end-to-end solutions, but that comes with its own challenges and barriers, like cars and standardising issues too,” explained, Shibu George, head of automation and electronics, Apollo Tyres.

“But, I would say the biggest barrier is the willingness to change in existing plants. If a change is to happen in an existing plant, there should be a willingness to change,” added the Apollo executive, who also delivered the keynote address at the ERJ-organised event.

“People,” continued George, “say they have been doing things the same way for the past 15 years and ask why they have to change. But with automation comes a good amount of discipline. You need to focus and automation doesn’t mean you can do what you want.”

Also on the panel was Jyrki Anttonen, technology director at Finnish automation company Cimcorp Oy, who agreed “resistance to change is something natural.”

Big organisations, he went on to say, have worked in certain ways in brownfield projects and they easily start to question your methods.

“People ask us ‘are you sure? We’ve been doing this for ages, we cannot change this now,’” Anttonen added.

Oliver Schramm, director of development production technology at Continental, also echoed other panellists, saying that in addition to "justifying the automation", developing the right skill-set was a major challenge.

The stepping stone, he said, is to really keep people on board.

“To begin with, you have to look into the acceptance [of the project] by the people,” he went on to say.

“But the biggest challenge, I think, is to turn mechanics to electricians and machine operators to machine managers. You currently have hard-working people, but you have to turn them into communicative team-workers,” Schramm added.

We have a pool of people in existing plants and we have to change them somehow, he added.

For Paolo Butti, who heads Rockwell Automation’s Automotive & Tire Industry unit for Europe, Middle East and Africa, the challenge comes from within.

"We think the challenge is complexity. I strongly believe that we have to come up with technologies that are simpler. For me the simplicity is going to drive down the cost. This way, we will not need huge developments or a huge platform," Butti added.

"If we don't reduce complexity, driving down the cost and driving down the mental barrier for adoption [of the technology] at existing or future plants, will not be successful," he concluded.