Sumitomo building new tyre tech centre

ERJ staff report (TB)

Kobe, Japan -- Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. (SRI) is building a $56 million tyre technical center at its Kobe headquarters as part of its 100th anniversary celebration this year.

The 8000-m². facility will replace a smaller centre when it opens later this summer. It will be powered by “clean energy” generated by wind power, solar power and biomass that can help reduce CO₂ emissions, SRI said, as well as a rooftop garden and other amenities to improve the working atmosphere.

Sumitomo said the upgraded tech centre will help it accelerate the development of eco-friendly products such as tyres that are free of fossil resources and tyres with a 50 percent reduction of rolling resistance.

SRI also has established a manufacturing training centre at its Shirakawa, Japan, plant, where the company will train the next generation of tyre workers, tapping into the knowledge and expertise of a generation of employees nearing retirement age. The centre also will serve to introduce workers from plants outside Japan to SRI's corporate culture and philosophies.

Sumitomo Rubber was founded in Kobe in October 1909 by Great Britain's Dunlop Rubber Co. Ltd. as Dunlop Rubber (Far East) Ltd. Production of bicycle tyres and tubes began in 1910, and in 1913 the firm manufactured Japan's first automobile tyres.

With the exception of the years during World War II, Dunlop Rubber had an ownership role in the company until 1960, when Sumitomo Group acquired control, changing the firm's name to Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. in 1963.

In 1981 Sumitomo set up a business alliance with Ohtsu Rubber, and in 1983 turned the tables on Dunlop, buying the then-struggling British firm's European tyre assets. A year later it also bought Dunlop Tire Corp. in the U.S.

In 1999 it sold a 75-percent ownership stake in the European and US tyre manufacturing assets to Goodyear, a partnership that continues today.

It used the proceeds of that sale to help it expand its presence in Asia, building plants in China, Thailand and Indonesia.

From Tire Business (A Crain publication)