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POLAND
Michal Zygmunt is Profil’s export specialist
Car tyre retreads have been on the decline for many years thanks to a poor past reputation and price pressure from cheap imports. However, as the cost of Chinese tyres starts to rise, and the global economy is under pressure, as people look for savings, there is a resurgence of interest in car tyre retreading. Currently Polish firms such as Profil are in the vanguard of exports to countries such as the UK, where car tyre retreading had all but vanished.
Profil Tyres: Quality Focus the Key to Success
There are many that say that the market is ripe for a resurgence in the passenger retread market. It is certainly true that those retreaders who have continued to invest in the sector are now well positioned to take advantage of any increased demand. There is now a group
2009 in France but since then they have exhibited at Brityrex, Essen and Tyrexpo Africa and Reifen China, where curiously enough, they picked up their Mexican distributor. The company will be exhibiting in Brityrex again later this year and are now making plans to have a
a bit more than 250,000. We do plan to do some developments in a few years but this will be for a few thousand more – not a big expansion”.
Profil actually has two brands – the Profil brand and the Collins brand of 4x4 and commercial retreads. The company also produces the Swedish brand Fighter on contract.
Absolutely critical to quality as far as Profil is concerned is the process of casing management. Casings are sourced from all over Europe (UK, Holland, Germany etc.) and are stored a two casing stores in the town of Gorlice, about 50 km away from the factor y. The main unit stores 65- 70,000 fast-moving tyres and employs 18 people. The company mainly focuses on Michelin and Continental group casings; although in smaller sizes more brands are used. “Retreading tyres is not easy”, says Zygmunt, “so we focus ver y closely on quality control. All tyres are measured before and after building. When ordered the tyres are checked again for
quality and subjected to inflation tests, balancing and sorted according to casing used.
In the factor y to maintain consistency on fast moving sizes the same person builds the same size (e.g.205/55R 16, 195/65 R 15, 235/45 R 17) and in a further quality control check, the factor y works only 5 days a week. On Saturdays mechanics work to check extruder, buffer, presses etc.
Profil also do not only use one rubber – they have standard summer and winter, premium summer and winter and LT summer and winter. Sidewall rubber is sourced from the UK supplier Berwin and tread rubber from Geyer and Hosaja in Poland Says Michal Zygmunt; “We are not focused on quantity. We don’t just want to just sell. We want to supply customers with good quality tyres that allow them to make a good profit. Now our aim is to increase our range with more sizes, new patterns and improved availability”.
of seven or eight European passenger retreaders, who continued to invest in quality, developed their export market and who now have a strong profile across a number of countries, primarily in Europe, but in other countries too.
One such company is the Polish retreader Profil Tyres, who are based in the village of Kleczany in southern Poland. Although the company has existed since 1984, Profil has only exported actively since 2010. Despite this the company now exports 70- 80% of its 250,000 tyre annual production.
The man in charge of Profil’s export activities is Michal Zygmunt, who has been with the company seven years. He tells a story of a company heavily committed to the development of its brand but also focused on optimising quality and developing long-term relationships with a key group of loyal clients around the world. Since their move into exports two years ago, Profil have been following an active policy of exhibiting at shows around the world. Their first show was in
stand at Tyrexpo India in 2013. According to Zygmunt, Profil places considerable emphasis on the development of its brand. This is because the company wants to get away from the perception in the market that all passenger retreads are the same. In this way prices tend to get pushed down to the lowest common denominator
and quality gets pushed down the list of priorities.
This is one of the reasons why Profil lays great importance on having a network of good dealers and on growing sensibly. Says Zygmunt; “We don’t want to be massive. We have had big orders in the past but have sometimes not taken them because it would have caused them a supply problem with our regular clientele. We do have expansion plans, of course. Our production is currently between 200-250K tyres per year. This year want to make
50 Retreading Business