Pirelli awarded "Best Innovator 2004"

PIRELLI AWARDED "BEST INNOVATOR 2004" PRIZE FOR ITS INNOVATIONS IN TYRES SECTOR

NEW AWARD TO MIRS - MODULAR INTEGRATED ROBOTIZED SYSTEM AND CCM - CONTINUOUS COMPOUND MIXING TECHNOLOGIES

Parma , 16 November 2004 - Pirelli Tyres was today awarded, during the first national Innovation Day organized by Confindustria, the "Best Innovator 2004" prize - organized by A.T.Kearney in partnership with Confindustria - for its ability of creating value through innovation.

Pirelli was awarded for "The excellence in integrating different dimensions of innovation"; the prize it's also another award to Pirelli's advanced technologies and in particular to MIRS - Modular Integrated Robotized System and to innovative mixing room CCM - Continuous Compound Mixing, which allow for significant reductions both in lead time and costs' production of high performance tyres, while at the same time increasing flexibility and products quality.

Thanks to these technologies, Pirelli achieved important advantages in prototypes' realization time - and therefore in time-to-market of final products - as well as the opportunity of further researching, developing and producing innovative products. Among these, it's worth recalling Eufori@, the first Pirelli run-flat tyre which can run at zero-pressure and today equips for example Mini and new BMW Series 1 and 3.

"Innovation is a core element of Pirelli culture; the Group aims at excellence both in processes and products, not being satisfied of current standards ", Mr Francesco Gori, Managing Director of Pirelli Tyres Sector commented. "Innovation allows to create value for customers and Company, which - in order to success - must foster and stimulate creativity and speed not only in Research and Development activities".

Pirelli Labs, the excellence center of the Group, is also carrying on R& D activities in the field of new materials and electronics for increasing driving safety. Among latest innovations patented by Pirelli, could be mentioned K-Pressure - the system which allows to monitor tyres pressure every six seconds sending data to a display on central car console - and SWS (Safety Wheel System), a solution that re-inflates a motorcycle's tyre in the case of either a puncture or a loss of air pressure.

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