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SOUTH AMERICA
Marcelo Ancora, Elgi’s General Manager in South America
Pneus Central Doubles Volumes with Tipler
Enhancing successful partnerships and positive practices is an integral part of Tipler's work with its dealers. This is certainly the case for Pneus Central, a retreader based in Rio Verde / GO in Brazil, which has been in the Tipler Network for six years. Since becoming a concessionaire, the company has doubled its
our production. We are very pleased with our partnership,” says Lindomar Gonçalves, owner of Pneus Central.
Despite the strong impact of the economic crisis on agribusiness in the Central-West region of Brazil, Pneus Central has maintained the same volume of retreads, projecting positive results and a resumption of
monthly turnover, evolved, grown and sought a position within the retread market in the state of Goiás, consolidating itself as a benchmark in quality.
"Tipler’s technical and commercial support, along with its PPA (Ready to Apply) treads and the courses and training offered by the Tipler Training Center (CTT), have given us the opportunity to grow and double
growth for next year. "We want to continue to be synonymous with quality and trust for our customers, reaffirming our commitment to continuous improvement and productivity. In 2017 we will continue to work hard to achieve better results. We still want to grow 30% in the coming years," adds Gonçalves.
Elgi Outlines Plans for Growth in South America
by Bandag and Michelin. At the moment the envelopes are hot stamped but will shortly be lasered. Innerlopes are currently imported from India.
“We plan to eventually grow to twenty times what we produced in 2016, and the majority of this growth will come from envelope production. We believe we have the best quality product on the market and aim to assure we also have best price. We want to surprise the market in this respect.” According to Ancora, there are also plans to invest in the company’s tyre repair line, where currently 90,000 radial
and bias repairs per month are manufactured in a single shift. The company, however, has recruited additional staff for a second shift, which is expected to be operational by the end of February. Elgi also plans to commence the production of OTR repairs in Lorena soon. “We are currently trying to have our repairs homologated by Michelin and hope to achieve this by the end of the first semester. We also plan to build a showroom and training centre and expect to commence construction later this year, concluded Ancora.”
Elgi’s South American operation at Lorena, a couple of hours’ drive from Sao Paulo, has changed quite significantly since the last time we visited it several years ago. Following the acquisition of equipment manufacturer Armonas in 2013 and the cessation of tread rubber production at the Lorena plant, Elgi’s attention is now clearly focused on the development of sales of the company’s comprehensive range of retreading equipment, and the expansion of the company’s envelope and tyre repair materials manufacturing facility. According to Marcelo Ancora, General Manager South America at Borrachas e Equipamentos Elgi Ltda, the addition of Armonas’s expertise in monorail systems to the company’s pre- existing range of Jet branded retreading equipment has enabled Elgi to supply complete retreading plants to the South American market. Says Ancora; “The target for the equipment we produce is plants producing between 500 and 2,000 tyres per month, which is the majority of retread shops in Brazil. The key to our equipment is that it is robust, and is built to produce. All our equipment, which is available for truck, bus and OTR tyres, is also backed up with 24-hour technical support, anywhere in South America.”
All of Elgi’s retreading equipment is assembled in-
house at the Lorena facility and is available for viewing at the company’s customer display area within the factor y. According to Ancora, Elgi is able to assemble a whole plant within as little as ten days. Within Brazil Elgi’s strategy is to offer local technical support in the various regions of Brazil, but all machiner y distribution is handled from Lorena. In other South America countries, Elgi works with distributors. “We currently have distributors in Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and Argentina, “explained Ancora, “and we are also in the process of developing one in Chile too.” Of key importance to Elgi’s development in the South American market is the development of the sales of the company’s envelopes and tyre repair products, both of which are manufactured at the Lorena site. At present the Lorena plant manufactures around 2,400 envelopes per month in two shifts, 60% of which are exported to the United States. The remainder are sold to various markets in South America.
Says Ancora; “A particular strength of our envelopes is their elasticity, which is
achieved by using a special
butyl supplied by Elgi in India.” All the imported rubber is tested in Brazil in Elgi’s fully equipped laborator y. According to Ancora, the company is also tr ying to
get the envelopes homologated
38 Retreading Business