Dear Colleague,

ITEC is your tire meeting designed to increase job-related knowledge and give you added tools/contacts for converting your knowledge into value for your company.  As professionals, our successes depend upon our education, training and experience, and our ability to convert these unique sets of assets into commercial value for our companies.  As professionals, we have a great deal of treasure and sacrifice invested in our jobs.  Unfortunately, our education, training and experience does have a half life. There are various estimates as to the tire industry knowledge half life, but for sure, a half life obsolescence danger exists as it does in every profession. 

Our rapidly evolving and more demanding products require even more of an effort to keep up with the technology.  Some new ideas do come from within our companies.  Perhaps more importantly, the “thunder clap” ones often come from seeds planted outside the concrete walls of our offices.

You know the old story: “To innovate you must think outside the box.”  Actually it would be more accurate that our tire industry mantra be “think outside the triangle.”  Most innovative efforts in tire development and manufacture deals with constraints that often resemble the points of a triangle requiring performance and manufacturing compromises.

Tire performance has always been described as a carefully crafted compromise between tread wear, traction and rolling resistance.  The tire traction field is also described as a “friction circle” (sorry not a triangle) described as competing forces that restricts the tire to its maximum friction capability.  Material and design technologies breaking down this barrier are now emerging and will be presented.

Recent innovation attacks on the performance triangle have resulted in significant advances. Wet traction and rolling resistance no longer requires the excessive sacrifice of tread wear.  Wire cord systems can make the manufacturing process more forgiving. Performance improvements are resulting from better blend and ingredient dispersions.  Tire service procedures in the field are also rapidly becoming state of the art and will improve various aspects of tire performance and reliability.

This meeting is designed to be attractive to a broad range of manufacturing professionals.  This can be an economical and excellent opportunity to have on-site small interactive private meetings between company groups.  We’ll be happy to provide the room!  Note that full registration has been set at $50 for the week.  

A workshop series will be conducted during ITEC week in which we will have 1.5-hour interactive informal seminar style sessions on internal mixing, calendering and in-plant laser guided quality assurance technique.  During the technical, manufacturing and business sessions, meeting delegates will get an eclectic range of subjects including optimized silica mixing,  extruders, mixers, calenders, a new recommendation for pressure/load requirements, new inflation retention technologies, Consumer Report and JD Powers tire test results, steel adhesion advances, a new airless tire configuration, new process oil standards, and new puncture repair material.

A tire ID coding procedure will be presented that should allow narrower, more focused recall capability if that unfortunate situation should ever arise.  This improved ID technology should be of interest to OE manufacturers who are always looking for ways to follow their vehicle components into the field. 

The 2nd International Tire Exhibition & Conference Distinguished Technology Achievement Medal Presentation will be made to William Van Ooij of Ecosil Technologies for his contribution to the new technology he has brought to the industry. Mr. Van Ooij’s lecture will be on Understanding Steel Cord Adhesion and will describe the evolution of his discovery process.

Please encourage others in your company to attend and start setting up those mini meeting schedules.  The week of September 20, 2010, may seem far away, but you can be sure it will be upon us in a blink of the eye.

Sincerely yours,
Harold Herzlich
ITEC Manufacturing Conference Chairman

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