Korean Wheel on the Wheel Visits Hankook Tire Korea Production and Research Base

One time I chatted with a married woman and she accidentally referred to Hankook. I didn't think of the married woman saying: Hantai, I understand, selling tires. To know that the tire brand is for women, just like a cosmetic brand for men and a married woman who can know Hankook Tire, how much I was surprised. After questioning, she learned that she knew exactly what Hankook Tire did. She was a Korean girl who loved watching Korean TV dramas. Can occupy a place in the female group, Hankook Tire is not easy to Smecta!

In fact, today's Hankook Tire is not the second-tier brand of the year and is now quietly becoming the world's fifth-largest tire manufacturer. Behind this achievement, Hankook Tire has its own set of magic. To this end, Hankook Tire has sent invitations to the global media to visit the Korean headquarters, allowing us to visit Korea in the late fall season.

Note: As the visits to this site include Hankook's brand new central R&D center, Geumsan plant, and G'Trac test site, all of which involve the research, development, and production of Hankook Tire's confidential information. The following pictures use the official shooting pictures and renderings, please understand.

● First stop: Hankook Tire's new central R&D center opened

Hankook Tire's brand new central R&D center TECHNODOME was unveiled as an important part of this Korean trip. Hantai is trying to witness the opening of the science and technology building under the testimony of the global media. TECHNODOME is located in Daejeon City, South Korea. From the first shovel on the groundbreaking ceremony in 2014, Hankook Tire spent two years building the building.

Judging from the current level of construction technology, it takes two years to build a unique architectural work. From the actual effect, TECHNODOME is indeed a decent work.

At first glance, TECHNODOME, you will find that this building is an Apple fan regardless of its appearance or interior decoration. It is like Hi-tech enterprise headquarters.

TECHNODOME was designed by Foster + Partners, a British architects firm. Its founder is the famous architect Norman Foster, whose new headquarters building is Apple's work. It is not difficult to understand where Apple Fan came from.

The dome is a landmark of TECHNODOME. Its overall project cost 266.6 billion won, a total construction area of ​​96,328 square meters, and an area of ​​70,387 square meters.

TECHNODOME consists of a six-story R&D building and an eight-story residential building, and is equipped with all the accommodation and welfare facilities required by various employees such as a fitness center, a medical clinic, a coffee shop, and a daycare center.

After the unveiling ceremony was over, all media were divided into several groups and they were transferred to the R&D center for visits. After the opening of the new central R&D center, Hankook Tire will carry out related product development and improvement, including raw material analysis, formula optimization, new product design, mute testing, and various environmental simulation experiences. The old R&D center, which is also located in Daejeon City, will continue to be used, and will be transformed into a production engineering R&D guidance center, responsible for increasing and expanding plant capacity.

TECHNODOME is equipped with professional laboratories such as raw material analysis and formula optimization. The problems encountered in the development of new products can be completely solved in TECHNODOME.

This is a silent test laboratory within TECHNODOME. Its configuration is similar to that of a complete vehicle factory. It has a professional-grade soundproof wall and a wheel that simulates different road surfaces. It can not only perform the test of a single tire product, but also perform the tire loading test. .

This is a different environment simulation room. The engineer first inputs various data collected in the field into the simulator. The simulator then simulates the road conditions and the environment based on the data. The tester drives in the cockpit and can obtain the same test data as the actual driving.

During the visit, some media asked about the number of employees in the R&D center. Hantai official stated that although the global economy has continued to decline and the employment situation has been extremely harsh, Hankook Tire has still increased its R&D investment.

At the launch of Technodome, Hankook Tire recruited a total of 1,000 R&D personnel, which accounted for 5% of the company's total employees.

The lunch of the day was arranged in the restaurant of TECHNODOME. The luncheon for the media reporters compared with the standard meal of the ordinary staff. Just a little more meat. It seems that the food here is still quite good. The easy way to sell and taste is Korean Smecta!

In addition to increasing investment in research and development, Hankook Tire also concentrates its resources on the development of ultra-high performance tires to meet the diversified needs of consumers due to changes in the driving environment, and to expand into high-end products.

Hankook has developed a number of new technologies and applied for patents, including tire rolling resistance control and new composites and materials. Hankook Tire also applied for a series of advanced technology patents, including: winter tires, explosion-proof tires, anti-wear properties, tread patterns, composites, and new manufacturing methods.

Recently, Hankook Tire has also expanded the scope of its patent applications, including improved appearance technology, low noise tires and self-healing tires.

● Second stop: Hankook Typhoon Jinshan Plant visited

After visiting the new central R&D center, we immediately drove to the Geumsan plant located in the south of Daejeon City. The Geumsan plant is one of the largest single tire manufacturing bases for Hankook Tire's global production.

The Geumsan factory has the most advanced automation system and multiple tire test tracks. The Geumsan factory was built in 1997. After four expansions, it has become what we now see. The amount of investment in the Geumsan Factory exceeds 1 trillion won (approximately US$1 billion).

At present, the factory covers an area of ​​872,000 square meters, employs a total of 2,800 people and operates three shifts per day. In 2016, the Geumsan plant is expected to produce 22 million tires, which is approximately 21.7% of the global production of Hankook Tire.

Before entering the production workshop, for privacy reasons, the cameras of the media were all centralized and the camera of the mobile phone was sealed. In the next visit, we could only use the eyes and ears to record what we saw. smell.

We started from the opening process. Most of the assembly lines in the factory floor are equipped with automation systems and the degree of automation is quite high. These systems include automatic delivery systems, automatic weighing systems, robotic automatic loading systems, automatic sorting systems, automatic storage systems, and the like. The production line can realize flexible production, that is, according to the production plan, different types of products can be produced simultaneously at the same time.

The tire production process requires steps such as pressing, assembly, and thermoforming. Just like steamed buns, the tires are warmly baked. After cooling, the finished products are finished. After completing a series of production inspections, the finished tires will be stacked by automatic sorting systems.

We saw the OE (pre-assembly) tires produced by Hankook for the entire vehicle brand in a number of locations in the workshop, as well as a prominent logo.

The OE branded vehicle brands in the factory include Hyundai, Kia, Samsung, Daewoo, and high-end brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and Porsche.

Taking the logo of a certain vehicle brand as an example, the information of the OE tire is specific to the brand model, size, tire pattern series, and the like.

In addition to the core Geumsan plant, Hankook Tire also owns seven other production sites, namely the Daejeon plant in Korea, the Jiaxing plant in China, the Jiangsu plant in China, the Chongqing plant in China, the Indonesia plant, the Hungarian plant, and the Tennessee in the United States under construction. Factory (expected completion in 2016).

When visiting the Geumsan factory, there was one detail that was impressive: The smell of rubber in the production hall was relatively strong (it was inevitable that after all, the workshop was made of tire raw materials, semi-finished products and rubber-like things), but as long as we walked out In the production workshop, no pungent rubber smell can be heard anywhere in the factory, and black smoke emissions are not seen.

All the odors and exhaust gas residues generated during the tire production process are treated in an instant manner by the environmental protection technology of the Jinshan Plant, thus ensuring the cleanliness of the surrounding environment of the factory.

2 Hankook G'Trac Wet and Dry Test Site Experience

● Third stop: G'Trac tire test site experience

After watching the tire production process, what is waiting for us next will be the actual measurement of the finished tire. At the Geumsan plant, in addition to the production and storage facilities, a dedicated tire test site, the G'Trac test site, is also provided.

The G'Trac dry land test site was opened in 2005 and has a total area of ​​200,000 square meters. There are 12 test roads (26 types of roads) and 15 tests can be conducted.

The maximum speed of the main road of the dry test field is 140 km/h, and the maximum speed of the maneuvering loop is 100 km/h.

In 2007, the G'Trac Aqua Wetland Test Site was also completed. It covers an area of ​​70,000 square meters. The tested roads include asphalt, basalt and Bridport.

The wetland test site has a total of 11 manipulative loops with a total length of 1200 meters. The test site has a width of 6 meters and the test can be performed within the speed range of 48km/h-104km/h.

We first came to the Wetland Test Site. What we are waiting for is a BMW 5 Series diesel model equipped with Hankook's latest VeNtusPRime2 tires.

For safety reasons, Hankook Tire did not allow us to personally drive the vehicle experience. Instead, we arranged for a professional test driver to drive and we performed the test ride experience.

I thought I was able to spread a few laps on this professional test field and I was quite disappointed after hearing the two words of test ride...

Before entering the venue, the test driver first closes the vehicle's body stabilization system in order to deliver the vehicle's dynamic stability task to the tires.

After entering the venue, the test rider quickly raised the speed and reached a speed of 61km/h when cornering. This speed is equivalent to the limit speed when we do the tire test and the test rider is basically pushing the limit of the tire of VeNtus PRime2. In cornering.

More importantly, this is the case when the vehicle stability system is shut down, but also on wet ground. The tire's wetland grip performance and test rider's technology are all evident.

In order to demonstrate the wetland limits of the VeNtus PRime2 tires, the test riders, despite our presence in the car, continued to squeeze the power of the vehicle on a slippery road: a foot brake before entering the bend and a foot of floor oil when out of the bend. The car can still grip the ground tightly and is in danger.

After three laps in the wetland test field, our body has been abused by the ever-changing G-value. After a short break, we will continue to experience the G'Trac dry ground test field.

Although the area of ​​the dry test field is larger than that of the wetland test field, what we are trying to experience on this site is not the speed limit. This relieves us just a few laps in the wetland.

The protagonists of the dry test grounds are two competing tires, one of which is VeNtusPRime2, which has just experienced in wetlands, this time to experience its self-healing function; the other is the VeNtusS1evo2 with a run-flat function.

The engineer first hit three nails on the tread of VeNtusPRime. After a short demonstration, he pulled out the three nails again, and then we took the test car and began to enter the venue experience.

The engineer first used a nail gun to drive the nail into the tread, and suddenly the sudden process took three nails into it.

Three nails that are tightly inserted into the tires, although the nails are deflated, because the tire material has a compact notch, the deflation rate is very slow, and there is no obvious squeaking noise when the deflated.

Pull out the whole iron nail and you can see that the gap in the tread is not obvious, and the hole is squeezed and blocked by the rubber itself.

With the tires that had been nailed, the test car was accelerated and changed in an emergency direction in the test field. The nailed tires were still held in a good state of pressure, and it was completely impossible to see that they had been hit hard.

We are sitting in the car and we are not staring at the road conditions of the test field but the tire pressure gauge inside the car.

Throughout the entire experience, the VelNtus PRime2 tire rubber that was pierced through the nails was self-repairing and did not suffer from the phenomenon of deficiencies, but maintained the stability of the tire pressure as normal, even as the tire temperature increased. The tire pressure also increased accordingly.

The other VeNtusS1evo2 tire, before the experience, the engineer left the gas of the left rear tire completely, wait until the tire pressure gauge shows zero tire pressure before driving into the venue experience.

The VeNtus S1evo2 tires, which were completely cleaned up, were indeed flawed from the surface, but the tires were not completely collapsed by the rims, and the sidewalls still had a supporting effect. The reinforced design inside the sidewalls was now working.

The tire pressure gauge of the on-board computer showed that the left rear wheel was completely flat and the tire pressure value was zero.

I deliberately chose to ride on the left side of the back row. Although I knew that the tires under my ass were completely flat, there was no single undulation in the vehicle during the experience.

When cruising on the site at a speed of 80km/h, the vehicle is still very smooth, but only before the vehicle starts and stops it will hear louder friction sounds from the broken tire.

After this lossless tyre ran four or five laps in the venue, there was no trace of rim rim rolling on the tread, indicating that the support on the side of the tyre was still quite strong. The full-loaded BMW 7 Series was not light.

3 Visit Hankook Tire T'Station flagship store

● Fourth stop: Visit Hankook Tire T'Station

As mentioned earlier, Hankook Tire is targeting high-end markets. In addition to cooperating with luxury brands on OE support, Hankook Tire also began packaging itself on the sales channel to create a high-end image. This is the last stop of our visit to South Korea, T'Station.

T'Station is Hankook Tire's high-end sales channel network. Since the first T'Station started operating in January 2015, the T'Station network has continued to expand. By the end of 2015, it has reached 570 store operations. Overall scale. In 2017, Hankook Tire plans to open its 600th T'Station store.

The T'Station store we visited is a flagship store in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The store has a total of three storeys. The first storefront is a storefront and workshop, the second floor is a rest area and product display area, and the third floor is a warehouse.

The shop is equipped with high-level system equipment including road force test (RFM), 3D wheel alignment, and automatic tire changer.

The first floor of the workshop has two stations. Although the area is not large, the equipment and materials are arranged in a relatively orderly manner.

This is the second floor seating area, which not only has a large sofa, but also displays prizes related to motorsports. The environment of the whole shop is very clean and tidy, and it is very different from the messy environment of our common tire shop. T'Station is, after all, a high-end positioning, and the style is still very important.

The most impressive of this T'Station is the Italian Corghi MASTER26 automatic tyre changer placed in the workshop.

The efficiency of this machine is quite high. The store's master has demonstrated the operation of disassembling the tire once for us. From the beginning of the tyre removal, to the installation of the tire in place, it takes less than 5 minutes, and the process of disassembling does not require Moving tires can avoid damage to the surface of the rim (I believe many owners have had the experience of disassembling the tire but scraping the rim).

The price of this tyre changer is also very attractive, requiring approximately RMB 160,000. Anyway, we have not seen in the country which tire shop is equipped with this level of tire changer.

Summary: The Korean tour organized by Hankook Tire demonstrated the determination and action of Hankook Tire to enter the high-end market through the display of a new R&D center, a tire production base, a professional testing site and a high-end sales channel. However, unfortunately, the experience in the professional testing grounds can only be carried out through trial rides. If we can personally drive tire products and venues, our feelings will be even more profound.

The performance of a car has a direct bearing on the performance of its tires. Tires are a direct influence on the driving experience, which is related to the degree of satisfaction of the driver. This is why the global auto companies have strict standards for the choice of tire companies. In the fierce competition in the automotive industry, the quality of tires and whether they can meet the needs of drivers become more and more important.

In order to meet these requirements, Hankook Tire develops tires for the new and unique performance of these cars, and through the global network, it continuously invests in R&D departments with high standards of quality control and safety standards to ensure that it has sufficient capabilities. Develop new technologies and form partnerships with well-known auto companies. The future development trend of Hankook Tire deserves our continued attention.

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