Scandinavian tyre service provider Citira sees robust potential for premium tyres in the Nordic region, driven by seasonal demands and safety priorities. CEO David Boman highlights that premium tyres including Pirelli’s offerings hold a significant share in passenger car, light truck and truck tyre segments supported by harsh winter conditions that emphasise performance and reliability. Despite a slight recent decline amid broader economic pressures and rising price sensitivity, premium brands remain relevant. Citira’s new long-term partnership with Pirelli and acquisition of Dackia AB aims to consolidate and optimise premium tyre distribution across Sweden.

Scandinavian tyre service company Citira recently told Tyre Trends that Nordic countries have excellent potential for premium tyres during a discussion over its partnership with Italian tyre major Pirelli.

Speaking on the market potential, Chief Executive Officer David Boman said, “When it comes to the Nordic markets, Scandinavia in particular has a relatively high share of premium tyres across categories including passenger car, light truck and TBR segments. Compared to other global regions, the demand for premium tyres here is notably strong.

“One of the main reasons for this is the seasonal nature of our market. Winter tyres, in particular, drive a more premium-oriented approach because of the need for high performance and safety under harsh conditions. While we’ve observed a slight decline in the premium tyre share over the past few years, it still holds a significant portion of the market. This demand is closely tied to seasonal safety concerns, especially in winter, autumn and early spring. Drivers here prioritise safety and reliability, which naturally supports the continued relevance of premium brands like Pirelli.”

He noted that the decline is likely tied to broader financial challenges in the market, especially following the Covid period. Both consumers and companies have become more price-sensitive, making cost a bigger factor in purchase decisions.

As a result, there’s been a gradual increase in demand for lower-cost, imported non-European tyre brands, while the market share of European premium tyre brands has slightly decreased.

Pirelli and Citira have entered a long-term strategic partnership aimed at enhancing their market presence in Sweden. As part of the deal, Citira will acquire Dackia AB that has a network of 102 retail outlets from Pirelli.

In return, Pirelli and Dackia have signed a supply agreement extending to 2030, ensuring Pirelli remains the main tyre supplier. The transaction, pending regulatory approval, is expected to close by 2025. The partnership will boost Pirelli’s distribution and market coverage while supporting Citira’s goal of expanding a sustainable, flexible and high-quality customer service network.

THE PACT

Citira currently runs over 50 tyre shops and over five retreading units across Scandinavia and Poland. “Citira is actively working towards creating a more efficient and consolidated tyre market. While our current focus is primarily on the Scandinavian region, it’s not out of the question that we may consider expanding beyond this geographic perimeter in the future. This agreement is part of a broader industry trend where partnerships and acquisitions are used to enhance efficiency, strengthen distribution networks and provide end customers with better service coverage,” revealed Boman.

Nonetheless, the deal specifically pertains to the Swedish market, and as part of the regulatory process, Citira has conducted a market analysis to understand the potential implications on market share. However, the specifics of that study were said to be confidential and could not be disclosed prior to the official closing of the deal.

Explaining how this partnership will influence the supply chain of premium tyre in the Nordics, Boman said, “We do anticipate some changes, particularly within Citira. We operate a number of logistics centres, and this partnership presents an opportunity to optimise our overall supply chain setup. Enhancing logistics will be a key enabler of better service and responsiveness in premium tyre distribution.”

He added, “This particular deal is unlikely to have a direct or immediate impact on independent retailers or smaller distributors. More broadly, the Scandinavian tyre retail sector is undergoing consolidation. Several players are actively reshaping the competitive landscape and that trend could gradually influence the positioning of independents. But again, this specific acquisition is not a disruptive event in that context.”

Alluding to the current demand for replacement tyres, he said, “In general, the tyre market has proven to be quite non-cyclical. Even in challenging economic conditions, it tends to remain stable. That said, I believe we’re entering a phase where circularity and life-extension solutions will gain more momentum. We’re likely to see increased focus on services that extend tyre life, especially for larger fleets. This shift won’t just be driven by cost or fleet uptime concerns but increasingly by environmental responsibilities.”

THE BUSINESS

According to Boman, Pirelli represents a very minimal share of Citira’s overall sales, currently. However, the strategic partnership mainly revolves around Dackia and Pirelli, and the former is intended to become part of the Citira Group. “Moving forward, there is definitely an opportunity to deepen the collaboration with Pirelli and potentially grow their share within our overall brand mix,” added Boman.

Citira currently follows a multi-brand strategy and will continue with it even after closing of the deal. Besides, it is also involved in process and sales of retreaded TBR tyres and wheel rims.

“We operate a facility in Poland where we refurbish truck and bus rims. The process involves media blasting and repainting the rims to restore its appearance and functionality. The logic behind it is quite similar to retreading. In most cases, the structural integrity of the rim is still intact; it’s just the surface or aesthetics that degrade over time. By restoring these rims, we’re able to extend the life and reduce waste,” said Boman.

The company operates five retreading facilities collectively, located in Finland, Sweden and Poland. It uses both hot-cure and cold-cure retreading methods. Hot-cure is used in Poland and cold retreading in Finland and Sweden. Annually, it retreads around 160,000 tyres, averaging about 13,000 per month. While its current focus is on retreading, Citira is actively exploring expansion into tyre recycling as part of a broader push towards sustainability and circularity.

The company also manages tyre distribution for fleets across countries. Its circular tyre distribution approach involves not only delivering new tyres to customers but also collecting used tyre casings from them. These casings are then sent back to its retreading facilities, creating a closed-loop system. Besides, Citira has different suppliers across Europe for sourcing tyres for retreading.

MARKET WATCH

Citira sees a strong willingness in the market for consolidation and it has already engaged in several partnerships. Commenting on market challenges, Boman said, “One key challenge is the need for a player capable of driving consolidation at a larger scale. In the Scandinavian markets, this kind of brand-independent consolidation hasn’t really taken place over the last 10 to 15 years. Previously, consolidation efforts were primarily led by tyre manufacturers or affiliate networks players. However, consolidation has largely been on hold recently, leaving space for an independent actor to step in. We see that opportunity clearly and believe it is well received both by other market participants and customers. The challenge lies in successfully executing this consolidation while maintaining trust and delivering value across a diverse market.”

Commenting on the demand for retreading, he said, “The Scandinavian market has a long tradition of retreading heavy vehicle tyres. Currently, there is a growing shift towards pay-per-kilometre or tyre-as-a-service models, especially among large fleets like bus companies and hauliers. Notably, public tenders increasingly require a certain share of retreaded tyres, reflecting a strong environmental focus. Retreading extends the life of a tyre by reusing about 70 percent of its original material, making it a significant sustainability tool. The market share of retreaded tyres is gradually increasing with expectations that the retread market will grow faster than the new tyre market in the coming years.”

“The main challenges for the retreading industry lie in overcoming the longstanding perception that retreaded tyres are merely a low-cost option rather than an environmentally friendly and sustainable product. This is mostly prevalent is Scandinavia and it is crucial to shift this mindset by educating customers and the broader market about the true benefits of retreading. Moving away from a purely price-driven sales approach to one that highlights quality, durability and positive environmental impact remains a significant hurdle for the industry,” he added.

CEAT’s Chennai and Halol plants are the only tyre facilities globally with two WEF Global Lighthouse Network inductions, and the company has also won the Deming Grand Prize for manufacturing excellence.

Yet 30 km from Mumbai, CEAT Specialty’s 49-acre Ambernath plant tells a different story: tyres too heavy for automation, built instead around nitrogen curing, induction presses and orders as small as one unit – a bet that sustainability will win markets in Europe and America.

The stakes: an INR 5 billion investment in all-steel radial technology, capacity expansion to 160 tonnes/day and a Camso manufacturing deal Tolani pegs at up to USD 1 billion – turning a manufacturing constraint into a competitive edge.

Amit Tolani, Chief Executive of CEAT Specialty, does not talk about tyres the way most executives talk about their products. He talks about them the way an engineer talks about a puzzle that keeps changing shape. “The way to look at it is that the manufacturing processes that we follow – how modern they are, how capable they are, how technically efficient – that’s what matters,” he says, sitting inside the plant that has become the nerve centre of CEAT’s off-highway tyre (OHT) business.

That plant – the Ambernath facility, a division of Mumbai-headquartered RPG Group’s CEAT Limited – is not a conventional tyre factory. It builds tyres that can weigh up to over 600 kilogrammes, tyres too large and too heavy for the automation that has transformed the passenger-car tyre business. And it is this constraint, as much as any strategic masterplan, that has shaped how CEAT Specialty has chosen to compete.

A PLANT THAT CANNOT SIMPLY COPY THE ROBOTS

Ask Tolani why Ambernath has not adopted the wall-to-wall robotic automation seen at CEAT’s Chennai or Halol facility, and the answer is refreshingly unglamorous: physics. “PCR tyres can be lifted by an ordinary human being, or a forklift, or robots,” he explains. “For these tyres, which are 600–700 kg, it’s very difficult to have a conveyor that can just lift them.” In the processes that do lend themselves to automation – mixing, calendering, curing – Ambernath’s equipment, he insists, is ‘as modern as the Chennai plant. More modern’. The plant intends to formalise that claim in the coming months by pursuing Industry 4.0 certification.

Where the physical limits of scale end, digital ones have taken over. A SCADA system tracks steam lines running beneath the plant floor. Where a leak once required a worker to walk the line, take manual temperature readings and diagnose the fault, artificial intelligence now flags the location almost instantly. “The point time taken to identify the problem is close to zero,” Tolani says. Every tyre carries a digital identity from raw material to finished good; a single scan reveals the batch, the machine, the operator and the timestamp behind it. AI is also being trained on the plant’s visual tyre inspection – traditionally a human, eyeball-driven task – using high-resolution cameras to catch defects, and on optimising mixing recipes and cycle times, the invisible chemistry that determines how a tyre performs in a paddy field or a quarry.

CURING WITHOUT STEAM

The most technically striking claim to emerge from Ambernath concerns curing – the energy-intensive process of vulcanising rubber under heat and pressure that has, for a century, meant steam. “This plant has already started using nitrogen curing on one of the lines,” Tolani says. Alongside it sit two proof-of-concept induction curing presses – a steam-free process, while the nitrogen conversion has come via LMT. “There are two presses that are already commissioned here,” he says. “We’ve already started working in that direction, where we want to take a lead in this space.”

The bulk of the plant’s newest investment, however, is going into something more conventional in principle but strategically significant in intent: all-steel radial off-the-road tyres. CEAT Specialty has committed INR 5 billion to this latest phase of expansion, representing a decisive shift in product architecture. Where a car’s tyres are universally radial, only 60–70 percent of truck tyres have made that transition, and agricultural and OTR applications lag further still – agriculture because usage is seasonal, OTR because a fabric-belted bias tyre still does much of the heavy lifting. All-steel radial construction changes that calculus by delivering higher load-carrying capacity and greater comfort, attributes increasingly demanded not only by Indian buyers but, crucially, by European and American customers. “It’s for demand from the European market, the US market – and the Indian market is also growing in such a handsome fashion that we want to cater to it,” Tolani says.

LEAN BY DESIGN, NOT BY SLOGAN

CEAT’s manufacturing philosophy is inseparable from its most prized accolade: in 2017, CEAT became the first tyre company outside Japan to win the Deming Prize, the world’s most prestigious award for total quality management; in 2023, it became the first tyre company anywhere to win the Deming Grand Prize, a distinction held by only 33 organisations globally as of 2025. Inside CEAT, this discipline is branded QBM – Quality Based Management – a homegrown fusion of Total Quality Management, the Toyota Production System and Total Productive Maintenance.

“We are a Deming Grand organisation. That means we follow the philosophy of lean manufacturing – not to use resources or have any wastage in the process,” Tolani says. That philosophy is embedded, quite literally, in the plant’s straight-flow layout, which runs from raw material storage through mixing, stock preparation, tyre building, curing and final finish in a single unbroken line. Even small batch sizes, he says, are produced without the wastage, excess labour or lost efficiency – what the plant’s internal vocabulary calls ‘Muri’ – that might otherwise creep in.

That same lean instinct underpins one of Ambernath’s more unusual competitive claims: a minimum order quantity of one. In an industry historically built around economies of scale, the plant will build a single speciality tyre to a customer’s specification without demanding batch aggregation – a capability the company says few OHT plants worldwide can match. Self-managed teams on the shop floor plan and execute changeovers themselves, allowing a highly automated, digitally traceable line to pivot rapidly to low-volume, customised orders. A related innovation, branded Unistage, builds and shapes an agricultural or OTR radial carcass into its final toroidal form on a single drum rather than the conventional two-stage process, reducing the handovers.

AN R&D CENTRE BUILT FOR SPEED, NOT SCALE

CEAT Specialty operates a dedicated in-house research and development facility at Ambernath, distinct from the group’s broader R&D infrastructure, and Tolani is candid about why. Tolani says, “This business is very, very different. There is no Pareto here – no 80/20 rule where a handful of product sizes serve the bulk of demand. Because farm and off-highway equipment come in such a long tail of sizes and configurations, and because the plant supplies numerous international OEMs directly, the time taken to develop, validate and commercialise a new tyre has to be compressed.”

“We needed a dedicated facility, closer to the manufacturing, so that we can quickly pilot, quickly turn around,” he adds. A new Compound Laboratory, opened in September 2025, now anchors materials science work spanning OTR, agricultural and industrial segments, while AI-assisted testing has trimmed, by Tolani’s estimate, roughly a third off the time from concept to market. The centre’s pipeline currently spans all-steel OTR tyres, a newly launched forestry range, very high flexion (VF) agricultural tyres and expanding work in earthmoving and material handling.

CAMSO ACQUIRED FOR BRAND, CHANNEL AND CATEGORY

CEAT Specialty’s move into Camso – a name Tolani values at up to USD 1 billion in brand potential across agricultural tracks, power sport tracks and material handling – may be its most consequential strategic bet. “It was a natural fit for us in terms of completing our portfolio,” he says. Ambernath, built in 2018 solely for agricultural radial tyres, gains through Camso’s new OEM ties (Massey Ferguson, John Deere) and construction-channel access across South America and Europe.

Under a three-year Michelin agreement, CEAT can currently manufacture and sell only compact construction tyres and tracks under Camso, taking over end-consumer sales in that segment – with other categories opening up once the term ends. The impact is already visible: standalone, CEAT Specialty’s off-highway mix is 85:15 agriculture to non-agriculture; with Camso’s, it shifts toward 50:50.

THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE AMBITION

Ambernath is running at 105 tonnes a day, at 92–95 percent utilisation – ahead of schedule. A further phase, due within 45 to 60 days, will lift capacity to 160 tonnes. Camso, still integrating, runs at roughly 50 percent.

Off-highway tyres make up close to 20 percent of CEAT’s speciality revenue, with the agriculture-to-non-agriculture split narrowing from 85:15 to near 50:50 once Camso is included. Domestically, Tolani credits GST reforms for a strong OEM market, led by Mahindra and TAFE, while mining stays flat – a segment Camso’s construction heritage should help lift as the new all-steel OTR line comes online.

When the World Economic Forum inducted CEAT’s Chennai facility into its Global Lighthouse Network in January 2025, it made the Indian tyre-maker the first tyre brand in the world to hold two such honours – Chennai following in the footsteps of the company’s Halol plant. Add to that CEAT’s Deming Grand Prize, awarded by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers for sustained excellence in Total Quality Management, and the company finds itself in rarefied company: one of only a handful of manufacturers worldwide, and the only tyre brand to hold both distinctions.

Behind these accolades sits a quieter, harder story – one of culture change, shop-floor scepticism and years of disciplined, incremental investment in artificial intelligence, the Industrial Internet of Things and automation. In an interview with Tyre Trends, Jayasankar Kuruppal, Senior Vice President, Manufacturing at CEAT, spoke on what these recognitions actually mean on the factory floor, and where the company believes manufacturing is headed next.

AWARDS AS A BY-PRODUCT, NOT THE GOAL

CEAT’s Chennai plant has posted striking numbers since its digital transformation began: a 54 percent improvement in dispatch turnaround, a 25 percent uplift in labour productivity, an 18 percent reduction in cycle times, a 31 percent improvement in operating cost and a 47 percent cut in Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Yet Kuruppal is quick to reframe the narrative around these achievements.

“The awards are lagging indicators, not the goal. What actually matters is what they force us to build: a common language for problem-solving across every plant, real-time visibility into quality and efficiencies and a workforce that trusts data over gut-feel,” Kuruppal said.

“That discipline shows up directly in the numbers – tighter process capability, better efficiencies and faster changeovers leading to shorter lead times. There is a commercial dividend too: global OEMs increasingly audit manufacturing maturity, and being part of the WEF Global Lighthouse Network gives us instant credibility in those conversations,” he added.

WHAT’S REALLY DRIVING THE INVESTMENT

CEAT has been pouring capital into AI, IIoT and automation across its plants. Is this cost pressure, premiumisation or a simple need to stay globally competitive? Kuruppal’s answer suggests it is all three, each playing a distinct role.

Kuruppal explained, “Quality, cost and efficiency is what gets the funding approved. Premiumisation is what’s shaping which lines we automate or upgrade first – you cannot hold the tolerances a premium radial demands with manual, operator-dependent processes.” According to him, global competitiveness, meanwhile, sets the ambition. “We’re not benchmarking ourselves against the best tyre plant in India anymore – we’re benchmarking against the best factories in any industry,” he added.

Asked to rank the three forces, he summarised neatly: competitiveness sets the ambition, premiumisation sets the sequencing and cost discipline keeps the whole effort honest.

REPLICATING HALOL AT CHENNAI: CULTURE OVER CODE

Chennai’s transformation built directly on lessons learned at Halol, the world’s first tyre facility inducted into the Lighthouse Network. And when asked what proved hardest to replicate, the technology, the culture or getting the underlying processes right, Kuruppal said, “Technology was actually the easiest part to copy. A use case that works at Halol can be re-deployed at Chennai in weeks.”

But the real difficulty, as per Kuruppal, was culture, people and change management. At Halol, habits such as daily data reviews, operator ownership of quality metrics and a managerial focus on coaching rather than firefighting were built steadily over several years. Chennai, by contrast, has had to replicate that trajectory on a compressed timeline, with a workforce encountering these practices for the first time.

“We had to resist the temptation to just parachute in dashboards and call it digital. We spent real time getting the underlying process standardisation right first, because AI on top of an unstable process just gives you a faster route to the wrong answer,” Kuruppal said.

Jayasankar Kuruppal, Senior Vice President, Manufacturing, CEAT

WHERE THE RETURNS SHOW UP – AND WHERE THEY HAVEN’T YET

The productivity and dispatch gains at Chennai, he explained, hit the balance sheet in different ways. The productivity improvement lowers conversion cost per tyre and improves absorption of fixed costs as volumes grow. The dispatch improvement is more of a customer-experience story: less finished-goods inventory sitting idle, and OEMs and dealers receiving faster, more predictable delivery windows – ‘which matters a lot when you’re chasing premium and export business’.

Not every initiative has paid off yet, however. Kuruppal was candid about the areas still short of return, singling out ‘some of the more exploratory AI use cases – like computer-vision pilots – which need more data cycles before the accuracy justifies scaling them further’.

QUALITY, MAINTENANCE, OUTPUT: AI TOUCHES ALL THREE

Rather than picking a single area where artificial intelligence delivers most value, Kuruppal argued that its power lies in the way it now touches quality, maintenance and output simultaneously – and that these reinforce one another. “Better quality data feeds better predictive-maintenance models, which reduces unplanned downtime, which directly lifts output,” he said. The most immediate impact shows up in more consistent product quality, higher yields and earlier detection of equipment issues. He pushed back, though, on the idea that AI at CEAT is a single flagship project: “On our floor, it’s dozens of narrow, specific use cases, each solving one operator’s or one supervisor’s actual problem.”

JUSTIFYING THE SPEND IN A MARGIN-TIGHT BUSINESS

Tyre manufacturing is not a business with room for indulgent technology spending, and Kuruppal was clear that CEAT does not fund innovation for its own sake. “Every use case has to show a clear line to quality, efficiency, cost or capacity enhancement before it gets budget,” he said. The company deliberately starts small – piloting on a single line, proving value with real production data, and scaling only what works – a discipline that means ‘the savings from scaled use cases fund the next round of pilots’. He offered a broader rationale too: in a commodity-adjacent business where raw material costs sit largely outside a manufacturer’s control, manufacturing capability itself becomes the differentiator. “If we can’t always control input costs, we can control how efficiently and consistently we convert them into tyres,” he added.

CHENNAI PLANT WIDENS ITS PREMIUM PUSH

CEAT on Oct. 1 announced an expansion of manufacturing capabilities at its Chennai plant across passenger car and SUV, commercial vehicle and two-wheeler tyres. The company said the move targets premium customers in India, Europe and North America.

What’s new

Cars and SUVs: The plant now makes the SportDrive SUV ZR22. CEAT said this makes it the first Indian tyre company to manufacture 22-inch tyres in India. It also makes the 4SeasonDrive+ all-season tyre and the CrossDrive RT rugged-terrain tyre, built for the U.S. market.

Trucks and buses: The plant can now produce seven advanced truck and bus radial sizes, including wide-base tyres that can replace dual-tyre setups, and low-profile sizes. CEAT is also scaling light truck steel radials in 15-, 16- and 17.5-inch sizes.

Two-wheelers: The SportRad Racing Slick range targets track use, and SportRad ST is a sport-touring range for motorcycles above 650cc.

“This investment strengthens our ability to compete in premium segments with products developed and manufactured in India,” CEAT managing director and CEO Arnab Banerjee said.

The 163-acre plant in Sriperumbudur, Kanchipuram, runs on connected machinery and real-time analytics. It also has a 9 MW rooftop solar installation and operates as a zero-liquid-discharge facility.

FROM PILOT TO SCALE: AN OPERATING-MODEL PROBLEM

With a large share of CEAT’s lines now running as ‘smart lines’, when asked what changes when a company moves from isolated pilots to scaling technology across multiple plants, the CEAT executive explained, “The problem changes completely. A pilot is a technology and data-science problem – get the model working, prove the use case. Scaling is an operating-model problem – standard work, training, change management, IT infrastructure that can handle load across sites and governance so every plant isn’t reinventing its own version of the same solution.”

CEAT has built what he calls a central playbook – reusable architecture, common data standards and the ability to roll a proven use case out to a new plant in weeks rather than months. “Just as importantly, ownership shifts: at pilot stage, a project team owns the initiative; at scale, it must become the plant’s own way of working, run by operations rather than a digital team sitting alongside it,” he added.

BRINGING 80 PERCENT OF THE WORKFORCE ALONG

CEAT reports that more than 80 percent of its workforce is now digitally enabled – a transformation Kuruppal admits did not come without resistance. “Yes, and I’d be understating it if I said otherwise,” he said. Crucially, he insists the resistance was never really about technology itself but about ease of operation. What worked, he explained, was making tools visibly useful to the person using them first – an operator seeing a dashboard that helps them hit their own target before it ever becomes a management reporting tool. CEAT invested heavily in shop-floor-specific training rather than generic digital-literacy courses and made a point of promoting from within, demonstrating that digital skills opened up better roles rather than closing off old ones. The company has also created new shop-floor roles beyond data scientists and engineers – ‘Business Translators’ and ‘Champions’ who act as torchbearers driving scaled implementation and wider blue-collar involvement.

CONSISTENCY, NOT JUST DEFECT COUNTS

Asked whether tighter process control has genuinely reduced defects, Kuruppal reframed the question around consistency. “Tighter process control means less batch-to-batch variation, which matters enormously in tyre manufacturing because so much of performance and durability comes down to material consistency through mixing, extrusion and curing,” he said. Real-time monitoring now catches drift early, rather than at final inspection – both a quality win and a material-efficiency win, in the form of less scrap and rework. The habit that has changed most, he said, is that quality data now drives daily decisions on the shop floor, rather than featuring only in a monthly review.

MANUFACTURING FOR A PREMIUM, ELECTRIC FUTURE

CEAT’s push into premium tyres calls for a step-change in manufacturing discipline. “Premium tyres are far less forgiving of variation, so the shift starts with tightening process capability across every stage – not just final inspection. That means more precise equipment, better process capability and closed-loop control,” said Kuruppal. In this context, flexibility takes on a different meaning: a wider SKU mix, smaller batch sizes and faster changeovers are pushing the company towards more modular manufacturing, alongside a workforce increasingly weighted towards process engineering expertise.

Electric vehicles introduce an additional layer of complexity. EV tyres must carry greater weight, handle instant torque and operate more quietly, tightening specifications around structural strength, noise and rolling resistance beyond those of conventional tyres. On the shop floor, that translates into new compound formulations requiring precise mixing, reinforced construction demanding tighter control of building machines and significantly lower tolerance for micro-variation.

CEAT’s existing leadership in the e-two-wheeler tyre segment, Kuruppal noted, is already feeding lessons – particularly on noise and efficiency – into how the company prepares lines for growing e-four-wheeler volumes in India.

SUSTAINABILITY AND RESILIENCE, BUILT IN

Sustainability, once a separate reporting exercise, is now ‘a line item in almost every manufacturing decision’, with energy and emissions sitting alongside cost and quality when evaluating new processes or equipment – Chennai’s 47 percent emissions reduction being the clearest proof point. Resilience, too, has become as much a data problem as a sourcing one. “Real-time visibility into inventory, machine health and production schedules means we can see a disruption coming and reschedule around it rather than reacting after a line has already stopped,” Kuruppal said, pointing also to greater flexibility in shifting product mix between lines and earlier warning signals from digitised supplier and logistics data.

SPEED AS A COMPETITIVE WEAPON

Manufacturing speed and flexibility, Kuruppal argues, have become one of CEAT’s most important competitive dimensions, as OEMs compress their own development cycles and expect tyre partners to match their pace – faster prototyping, faster line trials, faster ramp-up to volume. Chennai’s faster dispatch turnaround is part of the same story. “It’s not just about making tyres faster; it’s about the whole chain from order to delivery being more predictable and quicker,” he said.

GROUND STILL TO COVER

For all its Lighthouse credentials, Kuruppal was refreshingly honest about the distance still to travel. “Being part of that network is genuinely humbling. You see factories in electronics and consumer goods running end-to-end AI-driven planning and quality systems at a level of maturity we’re still building towards – particularly in advanced analytics for demand-and-production planning and in scaling generative-AI use cases beyond pilots,” he said. CEAT’s strength, he believes, lies in shop-floor execution and quality; the next frontier is connecting that data seamlessly across the full value chain, from raw-material sourcing to the end customer.

MANUFACTURING AS A GROWTH DRIVER

Perhaps the most striking shift Kuruppal describes is a change in how manufacturing itself is perceived within the business. “Traditionally, manufacturing was viewed in this industry as a cost centre that executes what sales and product teams decide,” he said.

“Today, our manufacturing capability is directly opening up premium and export opportunities, because global customers evaluate factory maturity as part of their sourcing decision. It works in the other direction too, shaping which premium and EV products the company can confidently commit to launching. Manufacturing has moved from being an execution function to being a genuine input into growth strategy,” he added.

WHAT COMES NEXT

Looking ahead, Kuruppal frames the next horizon as connecting what CEAT has built plant-by-plant into a single, integrated digital thread – spanning raw-material and demand planning, production and distribution – so decisions are optimised end-to-end rather than site-by-site. Generative AI, he said, is increasingly being explored for process and equipment troubleshooting and knowledge capture, making the expertise of CEAT’s best engineers accessible across every plant. Sustainability, meanwhile, will be designed into new lines from the outset rather than retrofitted. “The common thread is moving from isolated smart use cases to a genuinely integrated smart manufacturing system,” he explained.

THE ONE NUMBER THAT MATTERS

Answering the question on if he could track just one metric across every CEAT plant, what would it be, he admitted, “If I’m honest, no single number tells the whole story, but if forced to pick one, it would be Overall Equipment Effectiveness – OEE.”

“As a composite of availability, performance and quality, a healthy and rising OEE generally signals that machines are running, running at the right speed and producing good tyres – which is really the definition of a plant working as it should,” he said. It has its limits – OEE alone won’t reveal a lapse in safety culture or the pace of digital adoption – which is why, in the end, Kuruppal names two figures he watches above all: OEE and safety indicators.

Tana Oy has appointed Panu Ärölä as its new Territory Business Manager, a role he will assume on 2 November. In this capacity, he will focus on strengthening customer and distributor relationships across designated markets while contributing to the company’s ongoing expansion within the waste management and recycling sector.

Ärölä returns to Tana after previously serving as Sales Manager, where he developed expertise in distributor network growth. His background includes extensive international experience in sales, marketing, business development and strategic leadership. Most recently, he held the position of Head of Sales and Marketing at Jet-Tekno Oy, overseeing customer relationship development and business growth initiatives.

Gerd Schreier, VP – Sales, Marketing & Channel Development, said, “We are delighted to welcome Panu back to Tana. His industry knowledge, customer focus and experience in international sales make him a valuable addition to our team. We look forward to working with him as we continue to develop our business and create value for our customers and partners.”

Stephan Sielaff took over as chief executive of the Schill+Seilacher Group on 1^st October , as the chemicals group seeks to strengthen links between its businesses and focus more closely on customer needs.

Sielaff brings about 30 years of experience in developing international businesses and organisations. His previous roles include positions at Unilever, Symrise, Archroma, Lenzing AG and SSI SCHÄFER Plastics.

His priorities at Schill+Seilacher include getting closer to customers, encouraging greater knowledge-sharing across the group and making better use of capabilities across its businesses and locations.

“A good product alone is no longer enough. What matters is the value we create for our customers,” says Stephan Sielaff.

The group said it would seek to share knowledge, pursue opportunities jointly and strengthen connections between its locations and business areas.

Sielaff's appointment is intended to support a more integrated approach across the group as it develops its businesses in the years ahead.