Sep 30, 2013

  • This investment will fund the global expansion of production capacity as part of the Vision 2025 strategy - over 60 new jobs will be created
  • The established production site for passenger/light truck, two-wheel, and industrial tires will become a center for high technology production and process development
  • The focus will be on more challenging tire sizes (19 to 22 inches) for the original equipment and replacement market, otherwise known as U-UHP tires

Hanover, September 30, 2013.
As part of its Vision 2025 strategy, the Tire division of tire manufacturer Continental will be investing around EUR 40 million in the Korbach (Hesse) site by 2018. The funds will not only be used to set up a specialist production line for passenger/light truck 19- to 22-inch tires, for which demand is becoming ever greater in the international original equipment and replacement markets, but will also be earmarked for the central development of the process technology required to manufacture them. The large array of ever-stringent demands as to the performance characteristics of these high-tech products means that the engineers and production staff at Continental are being expected to deal with increasingly challenging problems, some of which pertain to process technology. "With this investment, we are taking deliberate action to scale up our investment program in the further development of product-specific expertise in tire design, tire tread, tire contours, and tire compounds, as well as in the expansion of our global tire production capacity. In bundling our expertise at the Korbach site, we will also be taking away some of the burden on our other production sites in a bid to drive forward the development of new high-tech processes for our tire plants worldwide from a central location. Increasing our investment in new, highly efficient tire testing technology such as the AIBA, for example, will help us to further improve our technological position," explained Nikolai Setzer, Executive Board member for the Tire division at Continental.

Besides the Automated Indoor Braking Analyzer (AIBA) - the world's first-ever fully automated indoor tire testing facility at the corporation's very own test track (the Contidrom) to the north of Hanover - and the ongoing ContiLifeCycle plant project for truck tire retreading and rubber recycling in Hanover-Stöcken, the investment in Korbach is yet another example of how the Tire division is committed to strategically planning and systematically implementing technological innovation. As far as Setzer is concerned, the recent successful performances given by the ContiWinterContact TS 850 in the winter tire tests conducted by the leading car magazines and automobile associations - in both 2013 and 2012 - is proof that a policy of continuous strategic investment in enhancing road safety is already paying off today.

"We are extremely proud of the fact that this internal high-tech project will help set us apart from other international production locations and will also create over 60 new jobs in Korbach by 2018. We will do our best to meet the challenges of starting production in 2016 and ramping up the production volume to around 400,000 U-UHP tires by 2018," added Plant Manager Lothar Salokat. "Our Continental team in Korbach, which - when we include the Tire Distribution Center and ContiTech - now totals a workforce of more than 3,000 people, has proven time and again not only that it is highly flexible and extremely motivated but is also capable of responding to immense challenges," Salokat went on to say. In 2010, for example, the Korbach team developed and optimized the highly complex process technology involved in a specialized heating process to produce Nordic Spike studded winter tires, which has since become a standard production process.

"We see this investment decision as a form of recognition for all the hard work that our employees have put in over recent years. Furthermore, it also forms an important element of our strategy to secure the site. People have enormous faith in us and this is something we can be proud of. Although this project in Korbach is an ambitious one, I am confident that it will also be a success and play an instrumental part in ensuring the success of the company as a whole," said Jörg Schönfelder, head of the Works Council at Continental's Korbach site.

distributed by