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ESTONIA
Recamic gives Sepa Rehv the technological advantage
Shearography ensures a low level of returns
Taking the Michelin Advantage
through dealers,” Astover said. “Dealers provide us with casings, and we send them the retreaded tyres back. In addition, we purchase maybe 1,000 casings per year from the Netherlands. These are primarily Michelin casings,” Astover explained.
At the same time, Sepa Rehv also may retread some other casings, even from Chinese brands.
“In Estonia, Chinese tyres, even the better ones, are always ‘bumping into’ winter. As long as we have snow and ice on the roads, and as long as we have frost, the Chinese tyres, as they are, will always be only the second choice for reasonable customers. And the second place in this game is the last place,” Astover said. “But this an option for a price conscious customers”.
bidding procedures for the contract to supply tyres to the local bus fleets and so on. The main requirement in the tenders like that is the initial price. Nobody assesses the price per km. We tried to get the municipal contract some time ago, but as long as there are no changes in the competitive bidding procedures, we would refrain from participating in them again,” Astover said.
There are always customers who want cheaper tyres. Astover said that Sepa Rehv keeps records on all tyres the company had been dealing with over the previous 10 years. Sometimes, it helps a lot in avoiding difficult situations.
“This is the basis of our philosophy. From the very beginning the best price per km was the key thing we targeted, and in this regard, we keep the
As almost all retreaders in Estonia have their own niche in the market, Sepa Rehv managed to grab the best piece of that pie – the premium quality segment. The company doesn’t fear the competition because they believe nobody around can produce retreaded tyres with a similar quality, and there is
and I believe it still is. We were lucky, because at that time Michelin was looking for some partners in the region to establish a plant,” Astover said. Originally, Sepa Rehv was a joint venture with participation of two companies, Hinkus and one other Estonian tyre company. “The papers were signed in
always a demand for a top- quality product. This all is thanks to the Michelin Recamic technologies, according to Ants Astover, general director of the company.
Sepa Rehv OÜ is a subsidiary of Hinkus AS, one of the biggest tyre companies in Estonia. Hinkus AS was founded shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union and by early 2000s expanded into a strong company with a turnover close to 6,000 truck tyres per year.
“Most of these tyres needed to be retreaded. When that need emerged, Hinkus AS firstly turned to some local retreaders, but then the management started considering some other options, like opening a retreading division within the company. They invited me to establish this retreading plant for them,” Ants Astover recalled. Being in charge of the project, Astover was free to choose the technology for the new plant. “The task was to make the best tyres possible, and in the retreading world the best quality could only be achieved by working with Michelin. This was the best truck tyre manufacturer,
2000 and so the plant began operation in 2001. At first, we were retreading around 4,000 tyres per year. Now this figure is on average less than 10,000 tyres per year, but in the good old days the production reached 11,000 tyres per year. Roughly 20% of these we are exporting to Latvia and Lithuania. The rest of the tyres are supplied to customers in Estonia. Our share of the Estonian retreading market is around one fifth,” Astover said.
Under scrutiny
Since the ver y beginning, the cooperation with Michelin was one of the main reasons why Sepa Rehv managed to thrive despite the rather complicated economic situation in the Estonian retreading industr y. “We have a license agreement with Michelin, which means that they control the entire production cycle at our plant. They also help us contact different business partners, like various tyre users, that in their opinion could be of interest to us. As a result, we are selling our retreaded truck tyres
According to Astover, it is true that Sepa Rehv has some retread prices above the prices for some new tyres, but that doesn’t necessar y mean that these tyres are expensive. Astover explained that on Michelin casings, the company often gives a lifetime guarantee.
And when a customer compares the mileage of such tyres and the number of cheap tyres that would serve the same market, it turns out that those that are offered by Sepa Rehv are actually the cheapest options on the market.
“Not ever yone understands what the real price is. For this reason, we never participate in the municipal competitive
philosophy of Michelin and Recamic,” Astover said.
“If you look at the development programmes of all major tyre suppliers, you would see that Michelin spends more than others on R&D programmes. And we, as their partners, see the results of that work in the quality of rubber, in the new technical solutions, in the good casings and similar stuff,” Astover said.
From the ver y beginning all technology was supplied and approved by Michelin, and now Michelin takes an active hand in Sepa Rehv’s operation.
The company has a sustainable business model, through working with numerous dealers
56 Retreading Business