The supplier will be responsible for the complete turnkey system – including all the automation equipment, total system control, project management and seamless integration.
Under the multi-million-dollar deal, Cimcorp and its parent company, Murata Machinery, will install the automated logistics systems for the new passenger car radial tire plant being built in Chester County.
The Cimcorp solution will take care of the handling and storage (at both constant and ambient temperatures) of raw materials – including natural rubber, polymer rubber, belt steel, bead wire and textile ply – and components such as calender rolls, belt carts, ply/inner liner carts, sidewall carts, tread carts and bead carts.
The automation technology will include conveyor systems for the unloading of the tire-building machines and transfer of green tires to the curing buffers; miniload automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) for green tire buffer storage; and monorail transfers for delivery to the presses.
In addition, Cimcorp’s scope of supply includes automation of the testing area, finished tire buffers and palletizing stations. In this first joint project, Muratec will supply high-bay warehousing systems featuring stacker cranes for raw materials and components, as well as the miniload automated AS/RS for green tires.
All automated equipment – robots, monorails, conveyors, stacker cranes and miniload cranes – will be controlled by Cimcorp’s warehouse control software, which will ensure 100% availability of all materials at all process machines. The automated handling systems will be delivered and installed in three stages from 2017 to 2019.
The South Carolina facility is expected to generate 1,700 new jobs and produce 10 million passenger and light truck tires annually when fully operational. Wu Zhicheng, general manager of the corporate equipment center at Giti Tire and head of the US plant project, commented, “From the beginning, we decided to build an advanced tire manufacturing facility equipped with the latest automation technologies. Investment in Cimcorp’s dream factory will ensure high throughput of high-quality tires.”
