An application of quality tools to improve the tyre remanufacturing process

Abstract

Abstract The tyre remanufacturing industries are facing quality and performance issues of the remanufactured tyres as they have developed their own tyre retreading methods due to the lack of standardized retreading process guidelines. This study focuses on identifying the challenges of the tyre remanufacturing process, highlighting various defects in retread tyres and their causes so that the challenges could be mitigated and the quality and performance of the tyres could be improved. To achieve the objectives of the study, the quality tools including fishbone diagram and Pareto chart has been used. For the above analysis, the data has been collected through multiple field visits and semi-structured interviews. The findings of the study indicate that organizations can improve the utilization of worn-out tyres by identifying tyre retreading defects and their causes and by implementing corrective actions at different stages in the tyre remanufacturing. According to cause-and-effect analysis, the defects found are failure of tread due to lack of standard tread joint method, side bulge generation due to sidewall degrading, and failure of the buffer layer due to tread and sidewall crack. Besides, a few recommendations are made for tyre remanufacturing to increase productivity and minimize the defects generation in retreaded tyres.