Pirelli - nicht nur stark in Kabel: Revolutioniert die Reifen Industrie! - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[der_Schaefer]

Pirelli`s Zusammenarbeit mit Cisco (Cisco investierte $ 100 million in Pirelli`s Components Abteilung), die Strategie ein "Internet-era champion" zu werden und Ambitionen third-generation mobile-phone Lizensen zu erwerben haben in letzter Zeit Schlagzeilen gemacht. Doch wer glaubt dass das ueber 120 Jahre alte Unternehmen sich von dem "Core Business" Reifen trennen will, sollte den folgenden Artikel lesen.

Mit einem 2000der KGV von 22 und einem Dividend Yield von fast 3% hat der Kurs noch enormes Potenzial.

Copyright 2000 The Economist Newspaper Ltd.
All rights reserved
The Economist


April 22, 2000 , U.S. Edition

LENGTH: 1476 words

HEADLINE: Re-inventing the wheel

DATELINE: milan

HIGHLIGHT:
A radical new production system for tyres will soon be unveiled by Italy`s Pirelli. It may shake up the world`s tyre industry

BODY:
EVERY company dreams of changing its industry. Pirelli, an Italian industrial group spanning tyres and cables, may actually succeed. If a new and flexible tyre-production system fulfils its potential, tyre making will never be the same again. Steel was transformed by mini-mills and sheet glass by the float-glass process. Given the tyre industry`s chronic overcapacity and low profitability, Pirelli`s new method not only makes better tyres, but also promises to shatter the economics of a business worth $70 billion a year.

Such claims have been made before. Indeed, most of the world`s big tyre companies have pet technologies aimed at making tyres more efficiently. Yet little in the way of new production has been achieved with all this technology, something that leads analysts to wonder whether technological ambitions have not been thwarted by a fear of ruining existing manufacturing capacity.

A few years ago Michelin, then the world`s biggest tyre firm, introduced "C3M", a flexible-production method, into its plant at Clermont-Ferrand in France. It hinted at productivity benefits of up to 90%. But the process remains highly secret and appears to have had little of its promised impact: only a handful of C3M units are in operation. Similar miracles have been promised by Bridgestone`s "Tochigi" and Goodyear`s "IMPACT" systems. Again, details of these manufacturing systems are as hazy as the promises are grand. Goodyear, for instance, will take 15 years before its plants are all using IMPACT -- scarcely a revolution.

At first glance, Pirelli`s claims seem equally open to question. Although the company is the market leader in high-performance tyres, it is only the sixth-largest world producer, and an unlikely pioneer. The new manufacturing technique has been under development for two years and is still in a research facility, hidden among the grubby buildings of Pirelli`s sprawling Bicocca plant on the outskirts of Milan. A few chunky robots sit among strange tubular machines alongside which are buckets containing ropes of rubber. Steel wires and tapes run everywhere in apparent chaos. If this is the future, it seems disturbingly hectic.

Only when the system starts to run does its elegance suddenly become apparent. While the robots sway and dance with startling precision, a high-performance tyre appears as if by magic. In contrast to the large tyre makers, Pirelli has shown a remarkable willingness to demonstrate its "modular integrated robotised system" (MIRS) to big car and motorcycle makers such as BMW, and the press, which will be able to see the first factory version of the system when it begins continuous operation in a few months` time.

MIRS has several features that distinguish it from traditional labour-intensive tyre factories. Perhaps the most striking is that tyres are produced entirely by machine. Driven by software, a series of robots carry the tyres right through construction to moulding and vulcanisation. Thanks to its robots, MIRS improves labour productivity by up to 80%.

The system is small and modular, unlike traditional tyre making, which has big economies of scale. The basic production line fits in a mere 350 square metres and costs a modest 45m-50m ($42m-47m). Working continuously seven days a week, this mini-factory can produce a million tyres a year, at an overall cost one-quarter less than that of a mid-size traditional plant, which might produce 6m tyres a year.

This frees Pirelli from the physical constraints of traditional large-scale production. MIRS can be installed almost anywhere, if necessary right next to a car maker`s factory so that it delivers tyres directly as they are needed. It is also easy to add more production lines. Additional modules can sit alongside the existing ones. Furthermore, a MIRS plant can be assembled quickly wherever it is needed. The contrast with the capital-intensive and huge traditional tyre plant could not be greater.

Some 20 patents protect the MIRS system, 12 of them related to the method of building each tyre, the rest to the software processes. The main technology was invented by Pirelli 20 years ago, but proved uneconomic. But what was then impractical has become possible with today`s robots. MIRS builds each tyre around an appropriately shaped aluminium drum. Raw rubber is heated and extruded on to the drum, followed by successive layers of steel wires and strips as the tyre takes shape. At the end of the process, the drum ingeniously collapses, leaving the finished tyre ready for use. The system is flexible. Change the shape of the drum and you change the tyre that emerges. With the right software programming, MIRS can build car, motorcycle, lorry and tractor tyres. A prototype motorcycle tyre is in preparation.

Pirelli boasts improvements in quality as well as productivity. Traditional tyre making is done in huge batches, with tyres assembled gradually. At any moment, only 12% of materials in a given batch are being processed. The rest are in storage, waiting until required. It takes six days to get from raw materials to tyres. MIRS takes 72 minutes.

But it also points to why tyres made using MIRS are better. Stored batch materials cool and must be reheated before use, conditions that can create flaws in the rubber, as well as waste. MIRS creates tyres at a uniform temperature in a single process, eliminating both problems. Pirelli says that leading car makers have been so excited by the improvements in quality that they have rushed the new tyres into their test programmes.

The road ahead

If MIRS`s benefits were limited to the creation of a better class of tyre, it would be of somewhat academic interest. But, says Marco Tronchetti Provera, Pirelli`s chairman and chief executive, the system`s scope is far greater. He thinks it will change Pirelli in fundamental ways, helping the firm to work more closely with its customers. These are not just the vehicle makers, for whom the main advantages are clear. They are also dealers who sell and maintain tyres and who control the retail aftermarket.

Start with the car makers. In future, they can have a just-in-time tyre-making facility wherever they want, allowing them to squeeze inventory costs a precious notch. But they can do something more profound. MIRS is controlled by a software system, so in theory tyre makers can feed their requirements directly into a production line, changing ingredients and design features as they wish. This opens new possibilities for integrated vehicle and tyre design, as well as for accelerated testing of new ideas.

That could help to elevate tyres from humble load bearers to sophisticated elements of a vehicle`s overall design. Pirelli is already developing new ideas to take advantage of MIRS. For instance, the system makes it easier to embed intelligent sensors into tyres. These could be linked to a car`s electronic information system and continuously pass on measurements of, say, pressure, triggering an alarm if it predicts a puncture. Optical sensors could monitor wear to determine when a service is due. Such improvements could have a big impact on any large fleet of vehicles, but especially on lorries, which make money by spending as little time as possible off the road.

Equally exciting, says Mr Tronchetti Provera, is the effect that MIRS will have on Pirelli`s relations with dealers. The flexibility of MIRS will allow Pirelli to slash dealers` inventories, giving it a big advantage over other tyre firms. Dealers can order what they want online and know that it will arrive just as they require it. The largest dealers might replace their costly inventories with a MIRS unit inside their own plant, so that Pirelli can build different tyres as needed.

Unlike competitors who have mostly dabbled with their new systems, Pirelli is placing MIRS at the heart of its strategy for tyres, which represent roughly half the firm`s overall business. Mr Tronchetti Provera says that he wants a quarter of his production to use MIRS within two years, an ambitious target. The effort will focus on Pirelli`s existing strength, the top end of the market, supplying high-performance tyres to car makers such as BMW, Porsche and Jaguar, as well as to the popular four-wheel-drive vehicles.

MIRS`s strength is not just its technological elegance, but its energetic backing from Pirelli. The firm could have used MIRS simply to cement its market position. But that would have meant laying off thousands of workers from traditional plants -- one reason why larger firms have been secretive and slow to roll out their new technologies. Instead, Pirelli is aiming to expand, increasing its presence in the less valuable, mass-market, bits of tyre making. With the arrival of MIRS the rest of the tyre industry might have little choice but to be more adventurous.

GRAPHIC: graphic, no caption

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH


Gruss der_Schaefer

[der_Schaefer]

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[Päpstin_2000]

Die Aktie geht zwar nicht ab wie "Elli Pirelli", aber sie steigt doch ein kleines bischen.Wenn die bald im Telefongeschäft mitmischen, kann man schon getrost in Urlaub fahren.
Gibts hier noch andere User, die Pirellis haben?
Gruß Päpstin