Prinx breaks ground on Malaysian ‘intelligent tire factory’

Kedah, Malaysia – China’s Prinx Chengshan Tire Co. has broken ground on a greenfield tire manufacturing plant in Kedah Rubber City as part of its move to expand production footprint and structure.

The Malaysian factory will serve as “another overseas strategic foothold” for the Chengshan Group following its tire production base in Thailand, said group chairman Che Hongzhi in an 18 Nov ceremony.

The facility, along with the Thai operation, will form a "twin star" pattern to “significantly enhance global production capacity, build a more resilient global supply chain network, and serve global customers faster and better.”

Unveiled earlier this year, the $300-million (€255 million) facility covers 1,000 acres of land and will supply core markets such as the US and Latin America.

The first phase of the plant has a designed annual production capacity of 6 million passenger car tires and 600,000 truck and bus tires and is set for operation in the final quarter of 2026.

A “key step” in Prinx Chengshan's global expansion, the Malaysian factory will be what the group described as a “benchmark project” integrating ‘intelligentisation, greening, and the entire supply chain.’

The project draws on experiences of two smart factories in China and Thailand and features production, R&D and living areas.

The project includes six core zones: raw material warehouse, moulding workshop, rubber mixing workshop, vulcanisation workshop, semi-finished product workshop, and testing workshop.

A “fully automated intelligent warehouse” will streamline the unmanned scheduling chain from raw material warehousing to finished product delivery.

“Combined with 5G digital collaboration and intelligent quality inspection systems, it will create an Industry 4.0 production process that requires fewer personnel and offers higher efficiency, and higher precision [compared to existing factories]," said Prinx.