Press Releases

Siemens to equip Continental tire factories with automation technology

Continental Tire has announced its tire division and Siemens signed a supplier agreement for Siemens to supply automation and drive technology for Continental’s tire factories worldwide. The aim of the cooperation is to further optimise Continental’s global tire production with control and automation technology, according to the company. As part of the agreement, standards will be established which will help Continental make its production machinery more efficient

“Tires connect cars and roads,” says Cedrik Neike, member of managing board at Siemens AG and CEO Digital Industries. “Without modern and innovative tires, we cannot reach our safety, efficiency, and sustainability targets. That’s why Continental Tires and Siemens have formed a close partnership, one that we are now expanding.”

To drive standardisation, Continental will purchase its automation systems and large parts of its drive technology for new machines and developments from Siemens. The supplier will equip Continental tire factories with Simatic controllers, I/O systems, WinCC Unified operator control units, and industrial PCs. Siemens will also train the relevant employees at Continental tire factories in TIA Portal. The high degree of standardisation will be even further developed, especially where software is concerned. The Siemens Tire Library, a software library for standardising the control of sensors and actuators, will also provide support on this matter. This will simplify mechanical engineering as well as maintenance for machines and equipment for Continental and its machine suppliers as well. Standardisation also enables the machines to operate regardless of machine supplier.

In addition, the use of these digital technologies promotes sustainable production, a key concern in the tire industry. In this regard, Siemens offers particularly long lifecycles for the hardware products to be used in the future and enables software and hardware changes to be integrated throughout the machines’ lifecycles. Siemens also provides technical support and is working on long-term availability of spare parts.

Siemens and Continental Tires have worked together in the past around digitalisation. One example is the digital twin of an extrusion plant, which is used, among other things, for virtual commissioning. Continental Tires also uses Siemens edge technology and cloud hosting for Mendix applications.

More information about Siemens at Tire Expo 2023 can be found here.

More information about Siemens solutions for the tire industry can be found here.

Comment on this article below or via Twitter @IoTGN