Petlas adding 'smart' warehouse at Turkey plant

Ankara, Turkey — Petlas Tire & Trade Corp. has begun construction of an automated "smart" warehouse at its factory complex in Ankara that's designed to improve its delivery logistics for customers worldwide.

Petlas said the new warehouse is tied to a "Final Finish Sorting System" (FFSS) that it has installed at the plant as part of a strategy to integrate information technology with physical logistics.

The combination of these assets will help Petlas provide customers with product traceability from the production line to delivery, the company said.

Once the smart warehouse is in operation, products will be directed through interim storage, storage and shipment automatically and managed by robots and special automatic means.

Petlas did not say when the warehouse will be operational nor what it's invested in it or the automated tracking system. The warehouse will be capable of storing and sorting 1.6 million tires, Petlas said.

The sorting system is based on uniformity-balance test machines, superintendent devices, conveyor systems and smart computer software, Petlas said.

The system classifies and palletises all passenger tires automatically and passes them along to the warehouse for storage and sorting. With the robotic systems, performance labels are applied and the tires are directed to shipment stations, where robots organise them according to a first-in/first-out system.

The FFSS is capable of handling 50,000 tires a day.

Owned by Turkish tire and auto parts distributor Abdulkadir Ozcan AS, Petlas is known primarily for its agricultural and related OTR tires, but in recent years has expanded its passenger and truck tire portfolios to include 4x4 and run-flat options.

Investments Petlas has made at its Kirsehir factory have raised the plant's annual capacity for passenger/light truck tires to 9 million units, the company said, providing sufficient volume to support the enhanced export initiative.

The company also recently disclosed it has added capacity for radial grader, earthmover and loader tires, and has expanded its range of radial truck/bus tires to include products for urban application, long haul-highway and short distance-regional.

The company is represented in the US by Petlas Tire USA LLC, based in Cheyenne, Wyoming.