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Know-how Gained Over 60 Years Stands for Retreaded Tyres of the Highest Quality
New life for tyres – that is, in a nutshell, the main business of Gummiwerk KRAIBURG Austria in Geretsberg. The company in Austria has been producing quality tyre retreading materials since 1965. The history of the company goes back as far as 1947 when it was founded. For the first two decades, the company operated from the German location in Waldkraiburg only. Whether retreaded in mould cure or precure, whether on asphalt, scree, gravel or sand, whether cars, trucks, bulldozers, industrial vehicles or even airplanes, KRAIBURG has the right tread design and the optimum compound, for every kind of use and whatever the job to be done, in a wide product range.
 Gummiwerk KRAIBURG Austria is an independent company belonging to the KRAIBURG GROUP, which, with twelve production plants in eight countries, sets the tone for the rubber industry and employs more than 1,500 people worldwide. The Geretsberg site – as well as being the largest KRAIBURG production plant – incorporates four business divisions. The largest focuses the activities of the group in all tyre applications and adjacent business fields: Here the concentration is on development, production and marketing of semi-finished and finished products for the tyre industry as well as “earth mover” applications since 2006. In 2006 a further business unit called "rubber flooring" was added to the business division, to which BELMONDO flooring horse stables belongs, as well as Ergoflex workplace mats for industrial use. Highly modern production technology, combined with a sophisticated IT system, provides effective processes as well as products which meet the highest quality standards.
Highest Standards of Quality, Service and Environmentally Friendly Practices
At Gummiwerk KRAIBURG Austria, we put our company philosophy of customer orientation and flexibility into practice. That is why we develop products not only according to our criteria of economic viability, safety and environmental friendliness, but most importantly in conjunction with and for the benefit of our customers as well. No matter for which main area of use (urban traffic, regional traffic, off road, long distance, mixed application) retreader or end user need treads, KRAIBURG always delivers the right tread pattern with an optimized compound.
In addition, commits the ISO 9001:2000 certified company itself to the following stringent quality and performance standards:
- consistently high-quality products for mould cure and precure retreading
- application consultancy and support with regard to customers’ quality assurance strategies
- innovative development work for continually improving products and methods for retreading tyres
- comprehensive service package for planning, purchasing and installing retreading facilities, including training for employees of the customer’s company
- distribution warehouses close to the customer (e.g. in Germany, Spain, Turkey, Bulgaria)
- consultancy and training concepts for retreaders
- disposal concepts for rubber dust and production waste
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The comprehensive service package helps the customer to increase productivity and as a consequence their economic efficiency; additionally, it represents a long-lasting contribution to the improvement of the quality of retreaded tyres. Environmentally-friendly practice is, besides high standards of quality and service, an elemental component of company philosophy at Gummiwerk KRAIBURG Austria. That is why, for example, around 40,000 tons of used rubber are recycled annually. Rubber dust and vulcanized rubber waste are processed by KRAIBURG’s plant in Tittmoning/Bavaria, where it is transformed into new products.
Prospects for 2010: Innovation for premium cold retreads
KRAIBURG Austria posted sales of 57 million euros in 2009, achieving its aim of maintaining a steady performance in the general economic crisis. This was due mainly to the surprisingly strong autumn trading and the clear increase in the demand for KRAIBURG quality products which went a long way to compensating for the poor half-year results. KRAIBURG Austria will do its utmost to make further headway in improving its operating profit for 2010. Having risen steadily since the autumn of last year, however, the continually increasing commodity prices are presenting a new challenge. Since July 2009 the price of natural crude rubber has more than doubled due to speculative trading, while the price for synthetic rubber is being artificially inflated due, in part, to shortages. The company is hoping to keep its own prices in check together with its partners, the retreaders. They will still be able to rely on the usual high product quality standards, whether they are using compounds for hot retreads or lengths from the K_base, K_tech, K_plus ranges for cold retreads.
Besides concentrating on high-quality products KRAIBURG Austria has been focusing in recent months on the development of new tech nologies. The re sult is a revolutionary process for premium cold retreads. The new K_wide technology is innovative, both in terms of the material and the method, and eliminates one of the major restrictions in the cold retreading process, namely the different tread widths for one tyre size. Using a modified VMI-AZ CTC extrusion system, retread specialists can design the contour of the tyres for optimum and uniform building width regardless of the buffing width of the original casing, provided that they use a special rubber compound and special wing formers. Another additional step is not necessary. One single specially developed material optimally meets the requirements of the previous cushion gum and those of the shoulder enlargement. KRAIBURG Austria will be presenting the new technology for the first time at this year’s “Reifen” tyre trade fair in Essen. The slogan is “Think Wide!”. The experts from Upper Austria are keen to set new standards, not least for the advancement of the KRAIBURG family. Further information is available at www.kraiburg-retreading.com.
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