Designing and industrializing processes

Michelin’s ability to design and industrialize specific processes is one of the keys to its success and represents a distinctive competitive advantage. Michelin intends to harness its traditional expertise to consolidate its technological leadership and meet its ambitious goals for sustainable growth.

Michelin’s history features numerous disruptive innovations which would have remained on the drawing board without the company’s powerful industrial resources. Very early on in its history, Michelin developed process engineering skills to keep pace with its innovations; this knowhow is apparent today in its mastery of guiding and assembly processes for flexible composites as well as the development of multi-technology machinery from design right through to the final shopfloor settings. And by standardizing its processes, Michelin can guarantee identical characteristics wherever the products are made.

Michelin has the power to industrialize its solutions so as to mass produce its disruptive innovations. This enables it not only to consolidate its technological leadership in tires but to implement high-precision specialist processes on various scales which are crucial if it is to achieve its ambitious goals in new areas such as composites, hydrogen or health care.

Michelin firmly believes that open innovation is a source of progress which can enhance its knowhow and therefore also partners with startups and works with academia on certain complex subjects in joint laboratories, such as FactoLab which studies innovative technology for tomorrow’s industry.

Moreover, the Group participates in several EU projects in particular in the field of materials and recycling. One example is the SoftManBot project studying “handling soft materials” or BlackCycle and WhiteCycle, consortia devoted to recycling.

A Michelin employee tests augmented reality in a workshop — Augmented reality in a workshop

End-of-life tire recovery — Recovery of end-of-life tires

Always ahead of the curve, Michelin leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to optimize its engineering processes by developing customized robotic solutions for the complex handling of flexible composites. To speed up the introduction of AI in its engineering, the Group is partnering with global leaders in the field of Artificial Intelligence and virtual solutions.

Michelin’s powerful integrated engineering function gives it wide scope for product design and assembly. This is a particularly valuable asset for Michelin which has set itself the goal of designing tires which contain 100% renewable and recycled materials by 2050. The use of materials which are bio-sourced or derived from recycled products inevitably impacts the manufacturing process as their properties and mechanical characteristics are radically different from conventional materials.

Developing processes offering exceptional performance in terms of energy efficiency and only producing limited scrap, designing processes allowing regenerated materials to be integrated into new product manufacture without compromising on quality, increasing tire lifespan by means of efficient retreading techniques... Michelin’s know-how in process engineering is pivotal to the Group’s All-sustainable approach which aims to drastically reduce the environmental impact of its activities.

The design of flexible composite products is part of the distinctive know-how that the Michelin Group can draw on to not only continue to grow in the tire business, but also expand into other areas.

FLEXIBLE COMPOSITE PRODUCTS

FLEXIBLE COMPOSITE PRODUCTS
Michelin has developed specific knowhow in the design, development and production of innovative materials.

MATERIALS

MATERIALS
Michelin masters the entire data chain from the capture of raw data to the extraction of insights right through to the actual proposal of solutions or actions.

DATA

DATA