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SRI LANKA
Pradeep Samarathunga, CEO, Richard Pieris Tyre Company Ltd.
On how long the plant would take before it is running on maximum capacity, Ganga said, “With the ongoing market conditions, it will take more than three years to achieve installed capacity utilisation.” The plant caters mainly to regions of North West and Central province with lorries running to pick and drop the tyres.
SGR is a 3K franchisee, but also
uses tread rubber from Autoline to cater to price conscious clients. Autoline is a local brand for the price sensitive market. The Kurunegala plant opened in 2006 to retread light and heavy truck tyres. It has been installed with two 10-tyre autoclaves of Indian manufacture. The second autoclave was added in 2012 as a standby whilst the first one was under repair.
Richard Pieris Tyre Company to Shift Main Plant
to Increase
Automation
Sri Lanka’s largest tread and retread producer Richard Pieris Tyre Company Ltd is planning to carry out an extensive modernisation drive soon. The exercise would also involve the shifting of the mother plant based at its Colombo based headquarters. “The move will increase automation at the plant to curtail an overwhelming dependence on manual labour. Nowadays the lack of trained labour is a major cause of concern in Sri Lanka as there is always a shortage of people at operational level,” said Pradeep Samarathunga, CEO, Richard Pieris Tyre Company Ltd.
The main plant is planned to be shifted to the outskirts of Colombo close to the expressway. “The negotiation for land acquisition is underway with the government, and this is likely to be completed in the next quarter. Once the land is acquired, we would start building the modern facility to be operational early next year,” he said. Richard Pieris controls a majority 55% share in the Sri Lankan retreading market, with retread volume reaching around 45,000 units each month. Richard Pieris retreads with the precure process as well as retaining traditional hot cure operations at its six factories operational around Sri Lanka. The company retreads around 39,000 tyres by the precure system and the rest of the 6,000 units by the hot cure process. It also retreads around 200 OTR tyres every month.
The company has plants in almost every corner of the country with factories based in Colombo, Gampaha, Kandy, Kurunegala and Weligama. A sixth plant opened recently at Polonnaruwa, which retreads smaller auto (three wheeler) tyres.
Richard Pieris has its own tread making plant, producing 500-600 tonnes of tread rubber for hot and precure