Tyre industry supply chain and sustainable manufacturing is prime topic at ATMA Partners’ Summit

The recently held ATMA Partners Summit 2019 gave a call for greater engagement between the tyre industry and raw material partners with a view to collectively build on a more sustainable ecosystem and respond to the emerging challenges.

The fourth edition of the Indian tyre industry event, hosted by the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) was held in New Delhi and witnessed the largest participation of senior management from the tyre industry and its raw material partners. This year’s Partners Summit assumed all the more importance as it was focused on key ingredients such as carbon black, zinc oxide, rubber chemicals and silica.

“ATMA Partners’ Summit celebrates the longstanding and time-tested relationship between the tyre industry and raw material partners. This year’s deliberations centered around the environmental impact of operations. Both materials and technology need to move in the trajectory of reducing the environmental footprint,” said Roopesh R, Convener, ATMA Supply Chain & Resources (SCR) Group in his welcome address.

Anil Srivastava: "India’s size and scale is an opportunity to be tapped."

Chief guest Anil Srivastava, Principal Consultant & Mission Director, Mission on Transformative Mobility, NITI Aayog said:, “India’s growth story is intact. India has retained its 'world’s fastest-growing economy' tag according to recent report by International Monetary Fund (IMF). We aspire to be a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25. We need to move from consumption-led economy to manufacturing economy to reach India’s full potential. Value addition is the key to become a manufacturing economy which will lead to job creation and improve ease of doing business. India’s size and scale is an opportunity to be tapped.”

In his keynote address, K M Mammen, chairman, ATMA commented: “ATMA Partners Summit is unlike any other industry conclaves. The presence of so many raw material partners exchanging notes with the tyre industry so as to make the entire sector globally competitive makes the Partners Summit a special one which has few parallels in Indian industry."

K M Mammen:  “The industry is in urgent need to take a re-look at materials and processes and bring in new technologies to achieve sustainable manufacturing."

“The industry is in urgent need to take a re-look at materials and processes and bring in new technologies to achieve sustainable manufacturing. The collaboration between the industry and raw material partners assumes all the more importance in this regard,” added Mammen.

ATMA welcomes government effort to reduce logistics costs
Welcoming N Sivasailam, Special Secretary (Logistics), Government of India, Anshuman Singhania, vice-chairman, ATMA said, “There is little doubt that high logistics cost has been impacting price competitiveness of Indian industry, tyre companies being no exception to the same. As per official figures, the cost of logistics in India is about 14% of the country’s GDP which is far higher as compared to other countries. We highly appreciate the government’s target to reduce it to 9% in the coming years”.

“Without tyres, logistics can’t be comprehended in India hence tyres and logistics are closely interlinked. One of our major targets is reduction of logistics cost as a percentage of business turnover however that should not be construed as shrinking of logistics sector. On the contrary, logistics need to be made much more competitive since high logistics cost impacts competitiveness of domestic goods in the international markets. As India aspires to be a $5 trillion economy in 5 years, the size of logistics sector will more than double to $500 billion. Multimodality of logistics is the need of the hour,” said  N Sivasailam, Special Secretary (Logistics), Government of India.

The event saw tyre safety awards being conferred to organisations which have collaborated with ATMA closely in spreading the message of tyre care and safety. While the tyre safety corporate partner award was received by Indian Oil, the training partner award went to JP Research and Satyug Darshan Instt. of Engg. & Tech. (SDIET) Faridabad received the educational partner award.

A Tyre Safety poster explaining Tread Wear Indicator (TWI) was unveiled. ATMA plans to spread awareness on TWI in collaboration with Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. Mr Sivasailam released a compendium on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities being undertaken by ATMA members.

Four experts made a presentation each on Carbon Black (Kaushik Roy, Managing Director, Phillips Carbon Black), Zinc Oxide (Bhuwan Purohit, WTD & COO, Rubamin), Rubber Chemicals (R M Gadgil, President-Marketing, NOCIL) and Silica (Darshak Shah, Managing Director, Madhu Silica).

Besides ATMA members, top managers of a number of raw material partners, both national and international, were present on the occasion. Some of these companies included Phillips Carbon, Birla Carbon, Orion, Continental Carbon, Rubamin, NOCIL, Acmechem, TWC, OCCL, Madhu Silica, Gujarat Multi Gas Base Chemicals, SOLVAY and Specialty Silica.

The Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA)  is amongst the most active National industry bodies in India representing the Rs 63,000 crore (US$9 bn) automotive tyre industry. Eleven large tyre companies comprising mix of Indian and International tyre majors and representing over 90 percent of production of tyres in India are members of the Association. ATMA members  include Apollo Tyres, Birla Tyres, Bridgestone India, Ceat, Continental India, Goodyear India, JK Tyre & Industries, Michelin, MRF, TVS Tyres and Yokohama.