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ARC CONFERENCE
The Role of Suppliers in Assuring a Better, More Competitive and Cost-efficient Retreading Industry
By David Wilson (Publisher – Retreading Business)
As you can see from the title, the subject matter of this article revolves around how the suppliers to the retread market have invested in technology and systems to allow them to offer products and services to their retreader partners to allow them to compete more effectively in the increasingly challenging global marketplace.
I do this based on the strapline of Asian Retread Conference – “Better, Faster, Cheaper.”
As everyone is aware, a large
are largely reliant on the innovation of suppliers to the sector, whether it be rubber suppliers, equipment manufacturers or software house. So, in this article I’m going to talk about the role played by some of the key suppliers to the sector.
Now, when I saw the theme of the conference, I have to admit that I found the strapline to be a little problematical, not least because of the ambiguity inherent in all three of these
about retreads – we all appreciate the difficulties the industr y has in convincing a sceptical public that retreads are anything other than “cheap and nasty”, and so the use of any words that perpetuate that myth should be avoided.
With that in mind I was glad to see that the organisers provided a clarification of what was meant by “Better, Faster, Cheaper”.
We were told that better referred to;
• Improving the perception of retreads
• Improving internal processes to produce better and more consistent products
• Investment in state of the art equipment and improved materials
Faster, it was explained, referred to the need for improvements in the speed and efficiency of the production cycle, whilst Cheaper, far from referring to a race to the bottom in terms of quality, referred simply to cost reduction exercises.
To be honest, I think we have to be careful when using the word “Cheaper” and discussing the concept of cost-reduction.
What we are talking about here is not just about reducing costs. We are talking about improvements in cost-efficiency certainly, but also about perceived value to the customer, which doesn’t just include the product, it includes service as well – it’s about improving product performance and making production processes better and more efficient so that the retreading industr y can compete more efficiently in an environment where it is coming under increased competitive pressure from the new tyre sector.
By and large, suppliers to the retreading industry have stepped up to the plate and provided a raft of innovations that are designed to help retreaders become more efficient, so in this article I’m planning to talk about what
some of these suppliers have been up to in recent years. I’m going to discuss in some depth the activities of the tread rubber manufacturers and then move onto the manufacturers, of inspection equipment, buffing, building and curing equipment, accessor y suppliers and then onto the providers of plant management systems and software providers.
First though, I plan to provide some context by identifying the key challenges faced by the sector and talking about why it has been necessar y for the retreading industr y to change its approach to how it presents its products to the market.
So, let’s begin by talking a little about the global environment that the retreading industr y has had to contend with in recent times.
Firstly, we have seen hugely fluctuating raw materials prices, especially in recent times, which have made it difficult for retreaders to plan and to set prices.
We have seen an increased legislative burden on the industr y – more standards to adhere to – which is not necessarily a bad thing, as it has increased quality, but it has increased the amount of time and resources that retreaders have to invest to remain in the market, which has made it more difficult for SME retreaders.
We have seen an increased interest in retreading from the new tyre industr y as manufacturers seek to maximise the perceived value of their products. The leading manufacturers have taken an increased level of control of the market, especially in the western markets, and we can expect this trend to continue. We have seen frankly a mixed level of support from Governments for the industr y as well as continuing mixed awareness of tyre maintenance and fleet management issues relating to tyres.
In terms of promoting the industr y we have seen mostly under-funded campaigns (with
proportion of the global retreading in industry in made up of SME’s, who individually don’t have the resources to develop the tools needed to keep pace with the demands placed on them to continually become more cost-efficient and customer focused. As such they
words in relation to the retread market, but above all because of the focus on the concept of “Cheapness”.
Those of us who see the need to promote retreading as a high- quality industr y with premium products are all wary of using the word “cheap” when talking
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