Opinion: Step up to the platform

Ahead of the company's participation in the Tire Technology Expo, VMI’s chief commercial officer Mike Norman urges companies to rethink how they upgrade tire machinery

Many different forces are shaping the future of the tire industry, from increasingly restrictive regulations and growing use of thinner, lighter materials to digitalisation and developments around electric vehicles and autonomous driving technologies.

To cope with such potentially disruptive changes, a simple move many companies could make today is to focus more on platforms and less on individual machines.

In the simplest terms, the platform concept means investing in production systems that can be kept at or close to best practice standard at all times through targeted upgrades, extensions and retrofitting.

VMI has been committed to this strategy for nearly a decade now, ever since the launch of its original MAXX tire building machines, and we believe it offers real advantages to tire companies of every kind.

The tire industry still does not generally think or act in this way, and there are good reasons why: Developing an effective tire-building system represents a massive R&D investment, and delivering acceptable return on this investment takes years of steady, efficient production.

So, there is a well-established pattern of capital investment in standalone machines, with limited upgrade potential only. General practice of the industry is to assume that a machine will work satisfactorily for a long period if properly maintained – 20 years is typical – and then be replaced.

This explains why it is quite common to see machines from different technology generations on the same factory floor, which cannot help in achieving consistency and optimal quality output.

But with tire manufacture becoming increasingly automated and more dependent on updateable components – such as cameras, HMI, data, control systems etc –  is there now scope for a wider adoption of the platform approach?

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