Continental’s tire division and Siemens have signed a strategic supplier agreement. As Siemens announces on the sidelines of the Tire Expo trade fair in Hannover (Germany), the company will supply automation and drive technology for Continental’s tire factories worldwide in its capacity as a preferred supplier. The aim of the cooperation is to further optimize Continental’s global tire production with innovative control and automation technology. As part of the agreement, standards will be established which will help Continental make its production machinery even more efficient throughout their lifecycles.
“Tires connect cars and roads,” says Cedrik Neike, member of the 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 standardization, 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 standardization will be even further developed, especially where software is concerned. The Siemens Tire Library, a software library for standardizing 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. Standardization also enables the machines to operate uniformly, 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 innovations to be easily 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 digitalization. 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.