The facility will result in a massive increase in testing capacity and pride of workmanship.
Making professional tire use safer and more efficient sets high demands on product development. To bring new ideas to the market faster, testing has an important role. Nokian Tyres has invested heavily on a new, state-of-the-art test centre for Nokian Heavy Tyres, upgrading the testing capabilities to a whole new level with added automation and capacity. Despite the challenges caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, the magic is already happening in the new building – enabling Nokian to introduce more and better new heavy tires. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, many phases of the construction process have been managed remotely.
In the tire product development process, testing is essential as it proves (or disproves) the design calculations and gives important data back to designers. That is why the new, nearly 4000 m2 facility is a vast improvement both in terms of testing quantity and quality. For example, the drum testing capacity grew significantly. The product development and OEM collaboration are much more efficient. Thanks to the added capacity, the earlier bottlenecks in testing have been eliminated. And there is plenty of room for future investments still. Another important factor is testing quality. The new machinery enables Nokian to gather more data and analyse it better, as the integration with the product development is more solid than before.
The purpose of the facility is to provide answers. The whole testing process from installation to measurements and 3D scanning, from pressure testing to section-cutting is optimized to provide quality data efficiently for different information needs. Different kinds of tests and analysis can be ordered by a product development team, customer service or by a machine manufacturer, for example. Nokian can provide them with a broad range of different analysis and in-depth information.”
In work ergonomics, the transformation from old premises to purpose-built facility is massive. In the design of the new test centre, special attention was paid to the safe and ergonomic handling of the tires and wheels. Everything is more clearly laid out now and on the same level. The process where the tire segments are scanned with a high-resolution scanner and transferred digitally fits well together with today’s social distancing requirements. The tire cross section data moves between the testing and R&D teams digitally, without the need of any physical contact.
Besides product development, the tire testing facilities are needed for manufacturing quality control – but also for customer service. On a rare occasion, there can be a tire failure, abnormal noise or some such problem in the field that needs to be thoroughly figured out. In these cases, tires can be inspected and analysed in the test centre. The feedback from the field gives an important understanding of the tire life cycle. Source