Toyo Tire Corp. announced the official opening of its new passenger vehicle tire factory in the Municipality of Indjija, the Republic of Serbia. Production had partially started in July 2022 as the factory became operational with all equipment being installed, Toyo said. President Aleksandar Vučić of the Republic of Serbia and a long list of distinguished guests were in attendance at the opening ceremony in mid-December.
Toyo’s new factory in Serbia features state-of-the-art technologies, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and a manufacturing execution system (MES) to visualize processes. By precisely linking the status information of each piece of production equipment, this “smart factory” unlocks a higher dimension of production management system optimization, Toyo said.
In 2019, Toyo Tire established an R&D Center in Germany to continue to search for and study raw materials, gather the latest information on vehicles and markets, and enhance its capabilities to develop high-performance technologies. Toyo’s Serbia factory will take advantage of the technologies developed to manufacture high-performance, competitive tires that meet market needs, including the ongoing shift to electric vehicles (EVs).
Adjacent to the factory building is a proving ground with a straight track of 720 meters and a total length of 1,690 meters. In addition, a solar power system, one of the largest in the country, provides 10.15 GWh of electricity output and helps to reduce 7,100 tons of CO2 emissions per year.
The new factory is expected to reach its full capacity of approximately five million tires per year (tires for passenger vehicles) during the second half of fiscal year 2023, Toyo said. While meeting local demand in its home region of Europe, it will also cater strategically to Toyo’s North American market and provide the European and North American markets with competitive products.
