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NEWS
HEXPOL Acquire Berwin Group
Bridgestone and Bandag Launch BASys Casing Management Tool
HEXPOL AB, the Swedish polymer compounding group, has announced that it has acquired the UK-based rubber compounder Berwin Group, which consists of three companies - Berwin Rubber Co Ltd, Berwin Industrial Polymers Ltd and Flexi- Cell (UK) Ltd).
With sites in Manchester, UK and Gloucestershire, UK, the Berwin Group is a leading rubber compounder with a long tradition in the retreading industry.
"This is a further step in expanding and strengthening the HEXPOL Group with a further acquisition within our core business,” commented Georg Brunstam, CEO HEXPOL Group. “Berwin, with its competence, capability and
experienced people, will fit nicely into the HEXPOL Group and gives a stronger UK presence."
“We are delighted that Berwin, which has been independent since its formation in 1953, has been recognised by HEXPOL for its market leading products and technical capability along with its loyal and experienced workforce,” added Glyn Williams, Chairman and main shareholder Berwin Group. “By becoming a member of such a strong international group we believe Berwin will continue to thrive.” HEXPOL already have a major presence in the global retreading industry, having acquired US-based envelope manufacturer Robbins in 2012.
Bridgestone and its Bandag brand have introduced BASys across Europe: a platform that tracks and manages casings for retreading.
By integrating a range of functionalities from collecting casings from the fleet through to delivery of the retreaded tyre, BASys helps fleet customers to use their casings more efficiently and reduce their overall tyre costs.
“BASys gives our fleet customers full online visibility on how their casing assets are managed. This allows them, to take better decisions on tyre and retread policy, a key element of the Bridgestone’s Total Tyre Care programme” says Steven De Bock, Director Truck & Bus, Commercial Business Unit, Bridgestone Europe.
The state-of-the-art platform integrates the casing management process with a series of apps. Firstly, the BASys Casing Collection App records data of the casings collected from the fleets or tyre dealers. Then, the BASys Manufacturing App allows the Bandag franchise dealer to follow the casings through each retread production stage, allowing optimized management of
production quality and cost efficiency.
Thirdly, the BASys Back Office App gives fleet customers full visibility with actionable reporting on parameters such as casing acceptance rates (with pictures of rejected casings), average number of repairs needed and number of life cycles of their casings. This enables fleet customers to make better decisions on the use of their casings, helping to optimise costs over the whole tyre lifecycle.
For maximum user efficiency, BASys features a user-friendly touch screen interface and barcode scanning. Apps are available for Windows 10 and Google Android (5.0 and above) mobile operating systems, managed on the Microsoft Azure Cloud computing platform. The system uses local languages of all European countries.
Bridgestone says it has developed BASys to better integrate the Bandag retread solution within the overall Total Tyre Care fleet offering. It will facilitate Bridgestone and Bandag fleet customers to reduce tyre purchase costs with less effort and maximum transparency.
Changes in BIPAVER Board
A number of changes to the board of BIPAVER were announced during the Federation’s annual meeting, held during the Reifen 2016 exhibition in Essen recently. Patrick Sjolin, Chairman of the Swedish Association DRF becomes the new Chairman of BIPAVER, succeeding Jose Gomes of the Portuguese Retreaders’ Association ANIRP, who now takes on the role of Vice President. Meanwhile,
Salvador Perez Vasquez from the Spanish Association AER, who was Chairman two years ago, steps down from the Board and is replaced by Bridgestone/Bandag employee Jukka Lankolainen, who represents the Finnish Association, Autonrengasliitto. Lankolainen can expect to succeed Sjolin as Chairman once the latter’s term of office expires in May 2017.
The BIPAVER Board (left to right): Ruud Spuijbroek, Hans-Juergen Drechsler, Jukka Lankolainen, Patrick Sjolin, Salvador Perez Vasquez, Jose Gomes.
Obituary: Hans Jörg
Carlo Hijzen, the General Manager of Dutch retreader Roline, has informed us of the passing of their employee, Hans Jörg, who died on May 30th 2016. From 1997 till 2009 Jörg worked with Bandag as Manager Training TSG Dealer Systems and joined Roline
in 2010.
On behalf of himself and his colleagues at Roline Carlo Hijzen made the following statement: “Being responsible for our operations he succeeded in bringing our company to an overall higher level. Specifically, he has developed an unequalled fully modular ERP system to control our retreading process and has integrated RFID-technology for tracking our chain of supply. But most of all Hans has contributed by being an engaging and amiable person. As a
colleague and as a friend he will be dearly missed. Hans reached the age of 51 years. Our thoughts and sympathies are with his wife and two sons.”
Finland Reports Reductions in Retread Market
The latest figures from Autonrengasliitto, the Finnish Tyre Specialists Association, show that production of retreaded tyres fell in both the truck and car tyre sectors in 2015.
Pre-cured truck retreads fell from 169,064 units to 159,969 units,
which is the lowest figure since 2009. Car retreads also continued to fall to 70,372 units, the lowest figure since 2010.
However, all was not doom and gloom, as the LCV pre-cure sector showed an increase from 1,468 to 1,546 units.
4 Retreading Business