News - 2016

Bridgestone Announces Introduction of EXAMATION State-of-the-Art Tire Assembling System Equipped with Proprietary Manufacturing ICT at Overseas Plant

2016/10/17

Tokyo (October 17, 2016) - Bridgestone Corporation (Bridgestone) announced today that it will introduce its EXAMATION^*1 tire assembling^*2 system at its Tatabánya Plant, a passenger car tire plant in Hungary, during 2016. Designed to further improve quality and help realize high levels of productivity with regard to tire production technologies, this state-of-the-art system combines Bridgestone's proprietary information and communication technologies (ICT) with a new artificial intelligence (AI). The introduction of this system at the Tatabánya Plant follows the installation of the same system at the Bridgestone Group's flagship Hikone Plant^*3 and will be the first time this system is introduced overseas.

The Tatabánya Plant is set to have its production capacity increased by approximately 12,000 tires a day during the first half of 2017, raising its total production capacity to around 18,000 tires a day. The introduction of the EXAMATION system will be conducted as part of this capacity increase.

In addition, Bridgestone later plans to introduce the EXAMATION into the new Russia Plant scheduled to commence operation during 2016.

Bridgestone will continue developing and deploying innovative production technologies to strengthen its production competitiveness while at the same time seeking to provide customers with even higher quality products.

Exterior of EXAMATION system unit

Overview of Tatabánya Plant

1．Company name	: Bridgestone Tatabánya TermelöKft.
2．Location	: Tatabánya suburbs, Hungary
3．Production	: Radial tires for passenger cars
4．Representative	: Adolfo Llorens
5．Area	: Approx. 660,000 m2
6．Start of operations	: 2008
7．Employees	: Approx. 800 (As of June 30, 2016)
8．Production capacity	: Approx. 6,000 tires per day (As of June 30, 2016)
9. Ownership	: Bridgestone Europe NV/SA (BSEU), 100% (BSEU is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bridgestone Corporation that oversees tire operations in Europe.)

*1. Assembling: Process of forming tires by assembling rubber, belts, cords, and various other parts
*2. EXAMATION: Bridgestone product trademark that is a combination of evolutional, revolutionary (x), attractive, and AutoMATION
*3. News release regarding introduction of EXAMATION system at the Hikone Plant:
https://www.bridgestone.com/corporate/news/2016061301.html

About Bridgestone Corporation:
Bridgestone Corporation (BSJ), headquartered in Tokyo, is the world's largest tire and rubber company. In addition to tires for use in a wide variety of applications, it also manufactures a broad range of diversified products, which include industrial rubber and chemical products and sporting goods. Its products are sold in over 150 nations and territories around the world.