With the sweeping wave of intelligence, China’s tire industry is also undergoing intelligent transformation and upgrading. At present, a number of highly intelligent factories have emerged in the country. These smart factories are not only the mainstay of the tire industry, but also a vivid reflection of the rise of domestic products.
Today, let us visit ten of these factories and explore their strengths.
Sailun Group’s “Rubber Chain Cloud”
“Rubber Chain Cloud” is the world’s first rubber industry Internet platform released by Sailun Group in 2020.
As the first industrial Internet platform in the field of rubber tires, “Rubber Chain Cloud” has broken through industry data silos and built an interconnection system covering all elements of “people, machines, materials, methods, environment, and measurement”. The equipment interconnection rate reaches more than 99%, and the annual data collection volume exceeds 4.5 billion, supporting real-time processing of millions of concurrent points.
Different from a single intelligent manufacturing system, “Elastic Chain Cloud” is committed to optimizing the global resources of the industrial chain, extending from production control to R&D collaboration, supply chain management, and consumer services, forming a “design-manufacturing-delivery-service” closed-loop ecosystem.
Prinx Chengshan Smart Factory
Prinx Chengshan’s smart factory is a successful example of the transformation from traditional manufacturing to smart manufacturing. It has smart factories in Rongcheng, China and Thailand. It is designed and constructed based on Industry 4.0 standards and deeply integrates automation and digital technologies to create an efficient, intelligent, and green production system.
Pulin Chengshan continues to innovate in production equipment and technology.
Cooperated with a well-known domestic rubber and plastic machinery factory to develop a special tandem internal mixer, which increased production efficiency by 51% and reduced energy consumption by 10-15%.
In addition, the first five-drum building machine for commercial tires has filled the gap in high automation in the field of commercial tire production at home and abroad.
Zhongce Rubber’s “Future Factory”
Zhongce Rubber’s Future Factory is located in Qiantang District, Hangzhou. It is the first batch of “Future Factory” pilot units in Zhejiang Province, leading the trend of intelligent transformation in the industry.
Since construction started in January 2021, it was completed and put into production in just one year, with a planned daily production capacity of 12,800 units and an annual output value of approximately 3 billion yuan.
In this factory, there are tens of thousands of sensors that capture technical data in the entire tire manufacturing process in real time and accurately issue task instructions to the robots.
From the transportation of raw materials to the handling of finished products, logistics robots operate efficiently according to procedures throughout the process; the aerial logistics line and the stacking robot cooperate tacitly to automatically complete the pickup and warehousing operations, realizing full automation of material flow.
What’s more noteworthy is that the factory’s automatic molding machine can complete the molding of a tire embryo in just 35 seconds. With visual inspection technology and intelligent correction systems, the entire process is integrated with inspection and adjustment without manual intervention.
Doublestar Group’s “Industry 4.0” Intelligent Factory
Doublestar Group’s “Industry 4.0” intelligent factory is the first benchmark in the global tire industry to achieve full-process intelligence. Its construction marks a milestone breakthrough in the transformation of traditional manufacturing into “intelligent”.
The factory focuses on user mass customization. By integrating the world’s advanced information and communication technology, digital control technology and intelligent equipment technology, it has built an intelligent ecosystem controlled by user orders, driven by data and run by software, redefining the production model of tire manufacturing.
Maxxis Factory
The Maxxis factory is all produced with intelligent equipment. The four major processes, from mixing to components, molding and vulcanization, use AI algorithms to calculate complex matching data to optimize production efficiency.
This smart factory can realize “lights-off production”, with robots and automation equipment covering up to 80%. The Internet of Things technology enables seamless equipment connection and data sharing.
Its production efficiency has increased by 40%, operating costs have been reduced by 30%, and product development cycles have been shortened by 30%.
At the same time, the product qualification rate is as high as 99.8%.
Jilin Linglong Tire Factory
Jilin Linglong Tire Factory is the first new base after Linglong Tire’s “6 + 6” global strategic upgrade. On the eve of the launch of the project, Linglong Tire signed an agreement with Tencent and Huazhi Intelligence to introduce industrial cloud, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain and 5G technology to create a trinity of “hardware-software-service” intelligent ecology.
The vulcanization workshop achieves 100% automated “lights-off production” with unmanned operation throughout the entire process.
In 2024, the first giant engineering radial tire weighing 1.3 tons will be successfully rolled off the production line, filling the gap in the Northeast region and becoming one of the few domestic companies that masters this technology.
Triangle Tire Huayang Smart Factory
Triangle Tire Huayang Smart Factory is Asia’s first-class intelligent high-end passenger tire production base built by Triangle Tire Co., Ltd. and was officially put into production in February 2016.
Using top-notch equipment from Germany and the Netherlands to build an integrated manufacturing system, it realizes full-process automation from raw material warehousing, semi-finished product transportation, finished product detection to warehousing and loading, with positioning accuracy reaching millimeter level.
With the MES system as the core, RFID, barcode and other technologies are integrated to upgrade the factory to an Internet of Things platform.
Guizhou Tire “Lighthouse Factory”
As one of the first companies in the global tire industry to be selected into the World Economic Forum’s “Lighthouse Factory” list, Guizhou Tire Lighthouse Factory takes digitalization, intelligence, and greening as its core, and through deep integration of cutting-edge technologies and full-process innovation, it has reconstructed the production model of traditional tire manufacturing and has become a model for the transformation and upgrading of the global manufacturing industry.
The factory is based on the industrial Internet platform and integrates advanced technologies such as 5G, big data, artificial intelligence, and digital twins to build a full life cycle intelligent management system covering R&D, production, logistics, and services.
The APS advanced production scheduling system increases production capacity utilization by 30%.
The AGV intelligent logistics system and the truss robot are seamlessly connected, reducing labor costs by 65%.
Senqilin Unmanned Factory
Senqilin Unmanned Factory relies on AGV unmanned forklifts and RFID technology to realize fully automatic distribution of raw materials to finished products, and the recipe error rate is close to zero.
Its independently developed production monitoring system enables equipment interconnection, real-time error correction and flexible production.
In addition, relying on its accumulation of intelligent technology, Senkylin has overcome the three major technical thresholds of aviation tires, becoming a supplier of COMAC ARJ21 and other aircraft models, breaking the monopoly of foreign capital.
GM’s “Black Light Workshop”
GM’s “Black Light Workshop” achieves 24-hour uninterrupted production without lighting through highly automated, digital and intelligent technologies, becoming a model for the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing.
The workshop is centered on intelligent equipment such as robotic arms, EMS trolleys, stackers, and fully automatic vulcanizing machines. It replaces traditional manual operations and covers the entire process of embryo clamping, vulcanization, tire unloading, and shaping. It supports the simultaneous operation of more than 6,000 tire embryos in more than 200 specifications and models, increasing production efficiency by 40%, reducing labor costs by 50%, and reducing operating costs by 20%.
There are many smart factories like this in China’s tire industry. These smart factories not only demonstrate the strength of China’s tire industry in the field of intelligent manufacturing, but also lay a solid foundation for the competitiveness of Chinese tire brands in the global market.
