QUALITY THROUGH CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Bridgestone Europe operates six manufacturing plants,
producing a wide range of different types of tyre
under Bridgestone, Firestone and house-brand labels.
All BSEU tyre plants are certified by Lloyds to
QS 9000 quality standards, with some to ISO/TS-16949.
The facilities are fully modernized and committed
to the “Kaizen” philosophy of continuous
improvement in all areas of the manufacturing process
– including safety, product quality, productivity
and costs. The plant in Puente San Miguel, in northern
Spain, specialises in the production of retread
materials, employing the same sophisticated technologies
used for the production of new tyres, to ensure
that pre-cured tread production meets the same quality
standards. This ensures that even sophisticated
solutions, like cap & base (dual compound) technology,
can be adopted and guarantee the same levels of
safety and performance as new tyres.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AT TECHNICAL CENTRE EUROPE
Technical
Centre Europe (TCE), near Rome in Italy, is the
driving force behind Bridgestone’s European
activities. It is where our winning Formula One
technology is applied to passenger-car tyres; where
innovative run-flat technology is raising safety;
and where new Bridgestone tyres and pre-cured treads
are developed and tested to the limits. Reflecting
its commitment to growth, Bridgestone Europe recently
opened a new state-of-the-art test centre (Bridgestone
European Proving Ground) at Aprilia, near Rome,
giving the company the most advanced year-round
testing facilities in Europe.
LEADING ROLE IN THE COMPANY
The 350 engineers, chemists, technicians, test
evaluators and support personnel at TCE have three
main responsibilities:
- Tyre and pre-cured tread design, development
and testing for all types of vehicles;
- Process and equipment design for our manufacturing
plants;
- Quality systems to meet QS-9000, ISO/TS-16949
and ISO-14001 standards.
FACILITIES AND RESOURCES
Within the total complex of 32 hectares, approximately
17,000 m2 of covered floor-space house a self-sufficient
range of design and development facilities:
- Chemical, physical and technical laboratories
for analysis of tyre and pre-cured tread materials;
- 3-D computer-aided design and engineering technology
for curing moulds and tyres;
- A pilot plant for the manufacture of prototype
experimental tyres;
- An indoor drum tyre-testing complex for both
new tyres and retreads;
- An outdoor testing ground where tyre and vehicle
tests are conducted year-round.
In addition to the above, Bridgestone tests its
full range of snow and ice tyres in the far north
of Sweden to ensure that their products, both new
tyres and retreads, meet the highest performance
and safety standards.
RETREADING PILOT PLANT
In order to develop and perfect retread process
technologies and equipment, Bridgestone has established
a pre-cured retread pilot plant in its Faderesa
retread plant in Madrid. This pilot plant will primarily
be used to showcase the benefits of Bridgestone
Retread Systems to existing and potential new Bridgestone
Retread Partners, so that they can see for themselves
that the theories have practical applications and
result in a highly productive and commercially viable
retread production model.
