Triangle Tire Aims High on Smart Manufacturing

Triangle Tire Co., Ltd., a low-profile Chinese tire manufacturer, has attracted thelimelight by a series of new moves since the beginning of the year.

On January 6, the company obtained a nod from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the securities regulator, for its initial public offering (IPO) application, becoming one of the first batch of companies that have won the IPO approvals this year.

At its 2015 annual meeting on January 30 this year, the company announced its core strategy for global brand development for the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020).

(The meeting Triangle announces its global strategy)

In H2, February, the company put into operation its smart, high-end passenger tire production base. The production base, recognized as one of Asia’s premier facilities, is based in Nanhai New Area of Weihai city, in east China’s Shandong Province.

Triangle’s moves towards global branding and smart manufacturing came at a timewhilst its peers struggled for survival and market shares amid a slowdown of domestic tire industry in recent years.

Through its globalization strategy and by laying out a green, intelligent and information-enabled industrial pattern, Triangle is gradually becoming a world renowned tire brand.

Over the years, Chinese tire industries have been widely blamed for being keen on waging price wars rather than on seeking high technical content.

While their foreign counterparts continue to invest in information and intelligenttechnologies, Chinese tire companies are worried about subsistence and market conditions.

The United States’ anti-dumping and countervailing investigations into Chinese tires in recent years, on one hand, came as a result of trade frictions between these two countries; but on the other, was largely related to the inferior quality and low prices of Chinese exported tires.

Is “Made in China” a synonym for low-end, cheap products? What is the way out for Chinese tire companies faced with export difficulties and sluggish domestic market?

 (Triangle appears at 2015 SEMA show in Las Vegas.)

Action speaks louder than words. Triangle has answered the questions by its action.

The company’s 6.7 billion yuan intelligent passenger tire production base adopts integrated manufacturing systems from Germany and the Netherlands. Designedaccording to the Industry 4.0 model, the production base realizes bidirectionaltraceability from the entry of the raw materials to factory to the exit of finished products from the warehouse.

At the plant, the whole process of tire manufacturing is monitored through the installment of chips and barcode identification equipment. Every tire has its unique “ID Card” and the plant is upgraded into a complete Internet of Things.

According to a source with the Triangle Co., Ltd., tires produced at this plant can meet the second-phase requirements of the EU Tire Labeling Regulation. They can be applied in global high-end replacement and supporting services, meeting the customized demands for countries and regions including Russia, North Europe and North America.

The EU Tire Labeling Regulation is a major technical threshold for Chinese tire exports to the region. Currently, few Chinese companies can meet the Phase II requirements of the regulation.

Now that more and more tire companies realize the importance of information and intelligence, they have start to purchase robots and improve their manufacturing capability. Triangle, built on its established leadership, has spearheaded again in marching towards “smart factories” that tally with the models of Industry 4.0 and Made-in-China 2025.

（Triangle is the only one in China’s tire industry to own a national lab.）

Over the years, the company has created a brand new productivity development model by integrating information, automation, modern management and manufacturing know-how and committing itself to the research and development of products with high performance, high technical content and high added value.