THE ECONOMICS OF TIRE REMANUFACTURING

The world market for tires is described to identify the current materi al flow from raw materials to tires and the used tire disposal problem . Then, I describe the value-adding operations in the tire production process and in the tire retreading process. Once retreading is identif ied as the only recovery alternative that maximizes tire utilization, I explain why heat generation is the only recovery alternative, when r etreading is not technically feasible. The economic values of heat gen eration in electric plants and in cement kilns are discussed. The pape r culminates with the case of retreading, the tire remanufacturing pro cess and the recommendation of a simple decision rule for selecting th e number of times a tire should be retreaded to maximize its utilizati on. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.