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ROMANIA
Romanian Retreader Harbours Major Expansion Plans
“This allows us to have the highest quality casings in terms of casing condition and casing brands. This, together with the bar code system,
his company uses top European equipment, working both in hot and cold technology. Among Radburg’s technology and rubber suppliers he
In recent years Romania-based Radburg Tyre has managed to become one of the largest tyre retreaders in Europe, producing 2,000 passenger car, van and 4x4 tyres and nearly 200 truck tyres daily, but the company’s plans lie far beyond these, as Radburg is now considering large-scale expansion, conjoining the boosting of production performance and a surge in global sales, including in new continents.
According to Vasile Mireuta, Radburg’s Import and Export Manager, the key things which originally made the company successful, were a strict traceability system and the company’s well- developed casing collecting system in Western Europe, primarily in Switzerland.
“We started in the 90s with the import of used tyres from Germany. On seeing that some of them could not be re-used, we turned to tyre retreading in the early 2000s. Starting the business from zero, we had to learn everything about it. We started to create a one-of-a-kind system using bar codes,” Mireuta says, adding that this system was a key milestone in Radburg’s
development over the years, driving the company’s future growth and ultimately bringing it to the top of the European retreading industry. “By this system each tyre received is bar coded and has a strict traceability within the company. This enables us to have a high-quality production, to be able to separate the tyres with minor cosmetic imperfections to a separate
second grade offer, to separate tyres with more severe defects, but still good technically, in a third-grade offer, and so on. This enables us to have a premium product that is extremely well-received all over the world,” Mireuta explains.
In additional, a further key milestone was setting up the overseas casing collection companies with Radburg’s main one operating now in Switzerland. This works with more than 500 tyre service outlets within the country and in fact covering more than 50 per cent of Swiss territory. However, the company is not limited to Switzerland in terms of casing collection, as it gathers casings from across Europe, as well as importing them from the USA, Australia, Japan and other sources.
enables us to produce premium tyres, made, for instance, only on premium brands like Michelin, Goodyear, Bridgestone or Continental,” Mireuta states, suggesting that in passenger car tyres this is a rare thing among retreaders.
According to him, Radburg is also taking some casings
from the Romanian
market, but actually
very few, because they have a low quality. The company also uses Chinese casings but only for use in budget lines of retreaded tyres. “We have a reception warehouse, where we unload the used tyres, inspect them, deposit bar codes and take them through X-Ray machines. After that, these tyres go to the next destination, which can be used tyre warehouses, casing warehouses or shredding/granulating facilities, where the scrap is turned into rubber granules and used to manufacture rubber mats,” Mireuta reveals.
The final inspection includes the X- Ray inspection of the finished tyre, grading according to product quality and storage. Each step is carried out by a touch screen process, whereby each person inputs all data on the specific stage. Basically, the retreading process takes two hours from the depositing of the bar code until the placing of the finished tyre in the warehouse.
“As we are also tyre recyclers, with a capacity of 50 tonnes per day, we produce one of the finest rubber granulates. We have recently started a rubber mats project, in which we see a bright future. We have also started to produce our own rubber,” Mireuta says.
In addition, Mireuta indicates that
lists CIMA, MARIGO, TRM, SIO, MAE and Kraiburg.
“We are using both cold and hot retreading] methods as we have the technical capacity for both, and we believe that when retreading is done properly there are no quality differences between them,” Mireuta explains.
Radburg has no shortage of casings to retread
Vasile Mireuta, Radburg’s Import and Export Manager
30 Retreading Business
No strength without struggle
According to Mireuta, Radburg has suffered the same problems from the invasion of Chinese tyres, just as all other European retreaders have done. He describes the competitive fight in the market over the past few years as “war”, saying that his company ultimately was able to find a way to improve the price/quality ratio and turn this problem into an advantage. He specifies that the company has been improving its price / quality ratio in two key ways. “Firstly, this has involved quality improvements as Radburg has turned to using mostly premium brands in casings, where sizes allow.