The past, present, and future of supply chain optimization: An interview with A. Tamer Ünal and Jan van Doremalen (Part II)
Over one billion tires are manufactured annually worldwide. Tire manufacturing is a complex process, involving various components manufactured from raw materials such as rubber, wire, carbon black and chemical compounds, which are assembled and then cured in a press under heat and pressure. Tire manufacturing plants are generally divided into proprietary or separate units such as mixing, component preparation, assembly, curing, and final finish. Coordination between these manufacturing processes is essential in order to ensure effective tire production planning activities.
Rule-based, traditional planning methods are not capable of coping with this complexity, as they fail to take into account sudden shifts in market conditions, disruptions, changes in production capacity, customer priorities, and materials and component supply. Lacking visibility and control over their supply chain operations, companies are often compelled to hold excess inventory and bear capacity loses due to frequent disruptions – and this can weigh heavily on the bottom line.
To attain supply chain excellence, tire companies must be equipped with automated planning and decision-support tools that enable them to visualize, synchronize, and optimize their end-to-end operations and keep supply and demand in perfect balance.
ICRON’s best-of-breed Optimized Decision Making and Supply Chain Optimization solutions pave the way to success – operationally and financially – for tire manufacturers.
By implementing ICRON’s integrated, intelligent platform, tire producers can:
