The expansion at the Otrokovice plant cost approximately €165m (US$180m) and has seen the installation of state-of-the-art manufacturing processes and technologies. Here the company will produce truck, bus and specialty tires.
The reconstruction and expansion of the CVT2 production hall, which has created 130 new jobs since 2014, began at the end of 2013 and was completed last year. It has been gradually equipped and trial operations are now well underway.
The first unit in the CVT2 hall was cured in 2014 while testing presses, but the first serial produced tire was manufactured in April 2015. At this time, production had started with one tire-building machine and six vulcanizing presses. By the end of 2015, additional tire-building machines and presses allowed production to grow. Now, all machines have been installed and are operating.
The tire-building and curing departments run non-stop across four shifts. Production capacity of truck tires will thus grow to nearly 1.6 million tires per year.
“With this investment, the plant has developed into a production hub for America as well as for the emerging markets in Asia-Pacific,” said Andreas Esser, head of commercial vehicle tires, Continental.
