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NORTH AMERICA
LanOTR Looks at Growth
The profit calculation is simple, a company must sell its goods for more than they cost. Today, every company has to fine tune its processes to minimise costs. Lan OTR’s President, Daniel Marleau explained how his company had approached this in 2015. LanOTR derives 80 per cent of its income from retreading and repairing tyres from off the road machinery. Back in 2008 Marleau knew nothing about retreading. However, by 2009 he was the business owner specialising in the field.
Marleau, an engineer by training became a manager in this business when he realised his dream of taking the helm of his own enterprise by acquiring Pneus Lanoraie, now LanOTR.
“A tyre casing is about 50 per cent of the value of a new tyre and can
the opportunity to review all the processes throughout the business. "I realised that profitability had lowered even if we had increased our sales in some categories, he said. It was clear that there was a lot of waste."
Thus began a long process of self- examination, carried out with the means at hand: a pencil, paper and software to record the information. Employees evaluated the time they attached to each tyre and Daniel Marleau analysed everything.
"What it showed us was the need to increase the price for some categories of tyres”, he said. “It was also understood that it was better to abandon certain categories because they lost us money."
The review process also helped to standardise methods of operation at the plant."We realised that some employees had developed tricks to
Daniel Marleau, president and co-founder of LanOTR: PHOTO PRESS
have the same service life when retreaded” says Maleau, “This is a question of big money when a new 2 metre tyre costs $8,000.” Despite the economic crisis of 2008, the company was doing well at the time of acquisition. It even increased its employees from 17 to 42 in the autumn of 2014 under the direction of Daniel Marleau.
"It is from there that it started to get bad”, says the businessman. “We felt the effects of reduced activity in the sectors of construction and mining."
The reduced activity forced the company to reduce its staff to about 35 employees. Marleau also took
be more productive. We helped them share this knowledge with others." said Marleau.
Eight months later, the self- examination is not yet completed. Daniel Marleau wants to maintain this approach in order to maintain the focus on productivity. "We still find new ways to improve."
With this knowledge, he says that LanOTR is now better equipped to tackle export markets, including that of New England.
"Now we are ready to increase our production volume”, he says, “and that will be going to the United States."
Image: Modern Tire Dealer
Galgo Pre-Q New Sizes for its APR Design
tyres from China.
During the conference retreaders from these three continents acted as panelists to field questions from the audience. Representing North America was Brian Hayes of
Purcell Tire & Rubber Co, representing Europe was Salvador Perez Lucena from Insa Turbo, whilst the South American market was represented by Dario Andreani of INSAMAR in Chile.
Galgo has announced the launch of new sizes in one of its best known designs for long haul/regional applications. The All Position Regional (APR) design
will be available in 190, 200 and 210 millimetre widths and 16 millimetre tread depth. With these 3 additions Galgo’s ADT range now includes nine sizes from 190 to 270 millimetres in width.
According to Galgo, the APR design is one of the best choices for truck tyre retreaders and transport companies, offering excellent mileage on regional and long haul applications, and featuring improved traction and reduced low rolling resistance. The APR design provides a large contact area with the road for improved mileage and incorporates a rock ejection pattern to protect the casing.
First Global Retread Symposium Held
in Las Vegas
2015 Global Tire Expo hosted the first Global Retread Symposium on Nov 4 last year in Las Vegas during the SEMA Show. The event, which aimed to discuss issues that affect the retreading market worldwide, was organized
Spuijbroek, Secretary of BIPAVER and Aldo Bastos, Director of International Business for Vipal. Issues covered included tyre labelling legislation in Europe and the development of a web-based labelling tool, the work carried
by the Tire Industry Association and TRIB.
The event featured presentations on the retreading market in North America, Europe and Latin America, given by David Stevens, Managing Director of TRIB, Ruud
out by Alarneu in Latin America including Chile’s efforts to introduce an extended producer responsibility programme, and, inevitably the issue of how to deal with the flooding of markets around the world with cheap new
16 Retreading Business