Page 37 - RB-82-17-3

FINLAND
Tread are pretty sure that the web- stores and web-sale hold the future of the retreading industry, as long as it is seriously simplifying and speeding up the purchasing process. It means some cost-savings for the wholesalers, as long as the sale process becomes more automated, while for the customer it makes shopping more convenient.
The quality assessment niche
Once a year Juho Planting also makes quality measurements of the retreading equipment at the retreading plants in Finland. This audit is one part of retreading quality management that is defined in the retreading plants quality programme. He explained that the set of measurement devices for assessment has the price tag of nearly EUR 3,000 and for small-scale retreaders it is senseless to purchase it. Green Tread Oy is providing the service free of charge for its retreading material customers.
Additionally, in Finland safety inspections of retreading equipment are compulsory. The safety officials visit the plant to check the results of the annual inspections, and if there is something wrong with the documents, the company can be fined or even temporarily shut down until all violations are eliminated. Planting explains that he has a set of measurement devices he connects to the retreading equipment, in particular to the autoclave. These devices are assessing the main operational parameters, such as temperature and pressure. The key point is that there should not be any serious deviations between the figures on the autoclave’s panels and on the devices.
Juho Planting explained, he goes once in a year to Estonia to make the same quality assessment at the facility of AS Vevid, since the Estonian company wants to have a Finnish level quality programme and retreading license. He said that if during the inspections it turned out that there are some differences between the parameters showed by the autoclave and showed by measuring devices, this means that the autoclave requires some calibration.
These problems do not concern the safety of the people of the plant (autoclaves are tested additionally by safety experts), but the quality of retreads. So, if the temperature and pressure in the autoclave is wrong, this means that the retreaded tyre could have some defects invisible to the naked eye. So, in general, Green Tread believes that the same inspections should be performed at all retreading plants, but it is hard to say if the company really would like to offer this service for export in
future. As of now, Juho Planting does this service for nearly half of all retreading plants operating in Finland, which comprises nearly a dozen plants located at large distances from each other.
Once in every year, Green Tread Oy organises the collection of retreaded test tyres (truck, car and van) from retreading plants and sends those to a test facility in Poland. There test tyres go through intensive stress tests that are also required as a part of the retreading plant quality programme. Reports from tests are then sent to the retreading plant and copied to the Finnish official who is supervising the retreading licenses.
Keskipinta Oy Offer Diversified Retreading Service
Keskipinta Oy is medium-sized retreading company with two plants located near Forssa, Finland. It is based right in the middle of the triangle comprised by three of the country’s largest cities – Helsinki, Tampere and Turku, where most of the industrial life in Finland is concentrated.
Markku Vilkman, the company’s spokesman said that Keskipinta Oy was originally established nearly 30 years ago. He has spent his last 17
years working in one of the company’s retreading plants, and before that another 5 years working at another plant. Speaking about the current state of affairs in the industry, he was not describing it as a crisis, but admitted that the demand in the market in past years had been significantly higher.
The designed production capacity of the two Keskipinta Oy plants is 6,000 retreaded truck tyres per years. Back in 2006 the company produced