ALARNEU, the Federation of South American Retreaders Associations, held its General Assembly during the recent Pneushow in Sao Paulo, with members from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay in attendance.
The ALARNEU General Assembly was held at Pneushow
The meeting was used as an opportunity for the various associations to share their experiences of the challenges facing the retreading industry in their particular markets, and the meeting resulted in lively debate amongst those who attended.
Eliciting particular strong debate was a presentation made by Sergio Sukacolnick of the Brazilian consultancy company Cesari Logistica Ltda, who made a presentation of Sassmaq (Sistema de Avaliacao de Seguranca, Saude, Meio Ambiente e Qualidade), which is a system introduced in Brazil by ABIQUIM, the Brazilian Chemical Industry Association, which allows the transport companies active in the transportation of chemicals to evaluate and certificate themselves according to Health and Safety, Environmental Credentials and Quality. Since 2005 Sassmaq has been mandatory in Brazil for the transportation of chemical products.
Sukacolnick received a particularly strong response when he argued that all you need to evaluate a tyre’s quality was to judge whether it adhered to the INMETRO Standard Esteban Rappazzo from the Argentinian Association ARAN and Eduardo Acosta from ARNEC in Chile, were particularly vocal in pointing out that quality can be measured according to many parameters not covered in new tyre manufacturing standards, not least their retreadability, which has a direct impact on environmental friendliness.
The second main presentation made at the meeting was carried out by Leandro Rigon from Vipal, who reported on BIPAVER’s reading conference held during the Cologne exhibition, and the BIPAVER members’ meeting the following day. ALARNEU and BIPAVER have much in common in the way they are structured, and with ALARNEU, as the newer organisation, trying to work out how it can best develop itself as an organisation capable of best representing the interests of the retreading industry in South America, it was able to learn much from how the European organisation had been able to organise itself, particularly with regards how BIPAVER had been able to fund its activities, co-ordinate specific responsibilities, and communicate between its member associations.
