In the tyre manufacturing sector, the days of producing long runs of a fairly limited range of tyres are drawing to a close, says Dries Lottering, manufacturing renewal executive at Bridgestone South Africa. “The old success levers of efficiency and cost reduction derived from economies of scale are being supplanted by the need for agile, flexible manufacturing capabilities. Of course, cost pressures have not gone away either,” he says. And as consumer expectations rise with the advent of the digital age, in South Africa massive new investments in plant equipment will be necessary to provide the flexibility needed to produce shorter runs of a greater range of tyres, says Lottering. “Unfortunately our industry has not invested consistently over the past decades, in part because low labour costs made the business case for capital investment hard to make.” The investment was also not confined to manufacturing equipment. “Our very plants will need modification in order to accommodate the requirement for a smarter, more IT-intensive manufacturing process,” he says. “Skills will also need to be addressed. The lack of investment in modernising equipment has meant that the skills have also not been upgraded. The new generation of machines require a more sophisticated skillset.”
Massive investments in plant equipment will be necessary to provide the flexibility needed. – Dries Lottering
