Pirelli MIRS™ USA: a great competitive advantage

Road Georgia, U.S.A., March 2003 - The new headquarters of Pirelli North America were inaugurated in Rome, Georgia, at the end of August 2002, to become the first Pirelli MIRS™ plant in the United States. This was officially confirmed by Gaetano Mannino, President and Managing Director of Pirelli North America, in the presence of the Governor of Georgia, Roy E. Barnes. By pressing the "start" button on the evening of that long inaugural day in August, Governor Barnes gave the robots of Rome their signal to begin the construction of Pirelli's first MIRS™ tyre in America: it was an ultra-high performance P Zero Nero M+S, the North American version of the P Zero Nero supersport tyre, which has become the point of reference in the ultra-low profile tyre market throughout the world. That is how the revolutionary new Pirelli high performance tyre production system became a reality for the U.S. market. Today, three MIRS™ modules are in operation in Rome, producing 300.000 tyres UHP. The plant, the result of an overall investment of USD 100 million, is destined to grow further over the next two years, employing a total of about 300 people. The production also will grow 3 times. "As the only manufacturer in the world with MIRS™ technology," said Mr. Mannino at the opening ceremony, "Pirelli demonstrates once again that it is at the top of the world tyre industry. The great tradition of Georgia in the motor industry was a determining factor in our decision to locate our headquarters here, close to Atlanta: the state has an optimum infrastructure and a highly specialised workforce". "We are pleased that Pirelli North America has recognised the leadership of Georgia in the automotive field," said Governor Barnes. "With Pirelli, we have the shared desire of placing Georgia among the world leaders of technologically advanced manufacturing, contributing to the economic growth of the region". The Georgia MIRS™ plant is focused on the production of original equipment and replacement tyres for ultra-high performance SUVs and cars in North America. This unique new manufacturing technology is an additional weapon for Pirelli to use as a major competitive advantage in its strategy of taking a global approach to the United States market, aiming in particular at the consolidated segments of 4x4 vehicles and high range sports cars, areas that are growing in an exponential manner. At the 2003 Detroit Motor Show in January, Pirelli set an absolute record for the number of vehicles that were fitted with its tyres as original equipment, including the brand new Scorpion STR, homologated for the Ford Excursion and the Super Duty F250 and F350 pick-ups: meanwhile, the super-low P Zero was OE on the Saleen S281 Mustang and S7. Another Pirelli product for the North American market is the P6 Four Season, an all weather tyre homologated for the Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Grand Marquis and Ford Crown Victoria. As well as the P Zero Nero M+S, the MIRS™ the Rome installation has now begun to produce its first top-of-the-range Scorpion for the 4x4 segment: the tyre is the Scorpion Asimmetrico, for the most powerful SUVs and pick-ups currently available in the United States. One such vehicle stands out more than the other in demonstrating how MIRS™ technology applied to Pirelli know-how in the SUV segment can produce absolutely exceptional results: it is the "monster" Dodge RAM SRT-10, the fastest, most powerful pick-up in the world, to which Chrysler decided to fit Scorpions produced by Pirelli's MIRS™ robots. The 500 hp red fireball - a Viper power unit in a pick-up body - marked the debut of tyres made by the Pirelli MIRS system in United States original equipment. MIRS™: a truly revolutionary technology With MIRS™, Pirelli has totally revolutionised traditional tyre production technology and methodology. The new process is based on the "mini-factory" concept, a unit of high flexibility - to the point of being able to produce a single tyre per size - which can be located in an area as dictated by the needs of the reference market. In a space of about 350 square metres, the robots carry out the work of the whole tyre production cycle, at a speed without precedent in the industry, from compounds to the finished product. They do so without interruption or semi-manufactured components that have to be moved and without intermediate warehousing phases. The MIRS™ robots can produce one tyre every three minutes. This permits the reduction of the average time of material transit or lead-time from the traditional process's three/six days to the MIRS™ 72 minutes. It is the absence of the warehousing stages that enables the total tyre production process to be concentrated in an extremely limited space. That practically reduces to zero the area required for the enormous quantities of materials and products that normally remain in circulation during the traditional process. Under the standard tyre building system, only 12% of material is being worked on at any one time, while 88% is stored and waiting to enter the production cycle. The technology of the MIRS™ process changes radically the means by which a tyre is made, reducing the production phases from 14 to just three. The tyre is no longer assembled in discontinuous stages, but is built by the robots directly around a drum, which the machines pass from "mechanical hand" to "mechanical hand", without stopping and without man's intervention. Extruders progressively apply a strip reinforced with metal cord to the drums with a movement of circumferential and axial deposition. The last robot builder sends the drum with the "green" tyre to the vulcaniser, which is a real "merry-go-round" of six moulds: they turn on their own axis with a cadence equal to the time of tyre construction, and also enable the maintenance of the process continuum in this phase. The vulcanised tyre then goes to the finishing department for the final stage in the procedure - meticulous quality control with the help of lasers.