Conti's new Retread Solutions Development Center focuses on future

ROCK HILL, S.C. — Continental Tire the Americas opened its latest venture into the retreading business in March, its Retread Solutions Development Center in Rock Hill, focused on improving the retread process and developing new technologies.

The lab, located about 10 miles from Conti's new Americas headquarters in Fort Mill, S.C., is aimed at bringing new and improved retread processes to Conti's Retread Solutions Partners and the fleets they serve. It also serves as a place for training, both virtual and in-person, to keep those retreading partners up-to-date on the latest innovations in the ContiLifeCycle retreading process.

Continental was a little late to the retreading game in the U.S., having only entered the field in about 2011, Shaun Uys, vice president of Conti's U.S. truck tires business, told Tire Business.

"We now realize that you need to be inside the retread business to be a premium player inside the U.S. market," he said, adding that fleet customers are looking for solutions more than just a new commercial tire.

Conti will be able to use the new center to make processes that have been around a long time more efficient, improve productivity and enhance its products, he said.

"I think the biggest advantage that we have is linking our digital solutions together. That enables us to set ourselves apart from everybody else."

Those digital solutions include ContiConnect, the tire maker's tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) that allows fleets to monitor tire pressure and other factors in real time.

There's a trend now in commercial tires that everything needs to be connected together, Uys said in a presentation at the center's opening. Conti is able to use its digital solutions set up to be "an integrated solutions provider."

Continental is focused on covering fleets "from the new tire that goes into OE all the way through the retread process," with support for fleets in between, he said.

Continental's commercial tires are built with durable 3G casings, designed to be retreadable and extend the life of a tire. Combined with ContiConnect and other integrated solutions, fleets can save money and lessen their environmental impact, Continental said.

Retreading factors into Continental's own sustainability targets — the company has shorter-term goals for 2030 and long-term goals for 2050 — as well as the sustainability goals of fleet customers.

Companies are more focused on reducing their carbon footprint, including in transportation. Continental can help with that, Renato Sarzano, senior vice president for truck tires in the Americas, said.

The company's sustainability push starts with material sourcing — using sustainable and recycled materials that responsibly sourced to build new tires — and then on to sustainability in its plants, warehouses and distribution operations, he said.

Tires also are sustainable during the "use phase" with a focus on low rolling resistance and durability.

Continental offers SmartWay-verified commercial tires — tires that meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency criteria for low rolling resistance — which reduce fuel consumption and, in turn, CO2 emissions, he said.

Fleets can then go to their customers and offer them a tangible way that they are reducing CO2, he told Tire Business.

"No doubt retreading connections 100% to sustainability," Sarzano said.

Continental pointed to data from the Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau: up to 44% of all commercial tires on the road in the U.S. and Canada are retreaded tires; retreads save approximately 217.5 million gallon of oil and prevent up to 1.4 billion pounds of rubber being added to landfills on an annual basis; and retreads reduce CO2 emissions by 24% and save up to 29% of land use compared to a new tire.

End-of-life also is an important part of the lifecycle, he said.

"We also want to be present here making sure that our tires, as much as possible, do not end up in landfills but they are recycled and they are really re-utilized" and even being part of sustainable materials in the future, he said.

The new center is set up as a retreading shop, allowing Conti's team to test technologies in the same environment its customers will use as well. It also assists in training, as retreaders will be able to use the same equipment and processes they'd use in the shop.

Fleet owners who tour the facility will also get a first-hand look at how their tires would go through the ContiLifeCycle process.

The multi-step process starts with tire tracking. Customers are concerned that their tire could get mixed with other carcasses and the customer's retread would not be done on the original carcass, Continental said.

Conti is using RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology that would automatically track a tire through the retreading process, ensuring those mix-ups won't happen.

The technology — still in the testing phase — would communicate with the other retread machines to confirm the tire model, size and tread. Those machines would be automated to that carcass' specifications, so the correct tread is applied.

The RFID technology also would allow fleet owners to track the tire throughout its life. As it's retreaded multiple times, the owner can see how the tire and its tread are wearing.

Tires are inspected throughout the retreading process, from an initial inspection to determine if the tire can be retreaded to a final inspection that ensures the retread is bonded.

In between, the tire goes through multiple steps including repairs and curing. One step is the use of a non-destructive shearography machine, which examines the inside of a tire to find imperfections that can't be seen by the human eye. When imperfections are found, the retread operator marks the issue so it can addressed further on in the process.

Since the casing of a tire is key in the retread process, some fleets require that a tire is scanned by shearography prior to its being retreaded, Continental noted.

Throughout the process, tires are transported around the shop through a suspended track, ensuring they don't touch the ground.

The demand for retreading has increased, even as fewer tire dealers are offering the service. As the market has expanded, retreading hasn't necessarily kept up, John Cox, head of Continental's Retread Americas unit, told Tire Business.

"Small changes can make a huge impact to a dealer's bottom line," he said. "We hope to not just stick with small changes but it doesn't take much to save a minute. If you save minute when you're doing 1,000 tires a day, that's a heck of a change you have in the retread process."

Conti is coming into the retread game as "a little bit of the underdog" which comes with a bit more drive, he said. "We have a bunch of folks that are passionate about playing offense. And we don't want to stand still."

After spending several years establishing research processes and finding a baseline — a benchmark to compare progress against — "we're able to move forward and push forward," Cox said.