Continental has broken ground for a new high performance tyre technology centre at its Korbach plant in Germany.
The new production hall – effectively a ‘factory within a factory’ – will take shape on a site measuring approximately 12,000sq m. The building is expected to be completed by the end of May 2015.
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Operations are scheduled to begin in July 2016. The centre will produce high-performance tyres for sporty passenger cars boasting an extremely high level of technological sophistication and powerful engines. The centre will also develop and fine tune production processes prior to introduction at the supplier’s other tyre plants.
“The ground-breaking ceremony marks not only the start of work on a new production line, but also effectively the extension of our research and development department into the Korbach tyre plant,” said tyre division head Nikolai Setzer. “We are spending EUR45m (US$58.2m) here. This not only enables us to introduce technological upgrades for production of ultra-high-performance tyres, it also allows us to show our OE customers we are acting in their interests by pushing ahead with technological advances so we can offer even better products in the future. The process expertise we gain as a result will be channelled into all our tyre plants and product lines.”
Around 60 employees will working in the new facility. Continental increased the amount it had originally earmarked for the project by around EUR5m in order to give the new facility even greater capability.
Work will start on a test basis from September 2015, according to plant manager Lothar Salokat: “We’re expecting to be able to produce around 350,000 tyres annually at the new centre once regular operation is underway,” he said. “We’re talking in part about products for highly exacting requirements – i.e. for ultra-powerful vehicles. They include tyres with diameters of 18 – 22 inches.” As well as production of these tyres, trials will be conducted on a range of different compounds and production stages.
