TIREDDX: an integrated intelligent defects diagnostic system for tire production and service

Tire manufacturing is a complicated process due to the number of processing variables involved, dealing with more than 80 raw materials undergoing six main processing steps. Accordingly, the quality of a tire and its efficiency in use depend highly on the raw materials quality and the processing variables. Consequently, in order to properly diagnose a defect (quality parameter) in a tire, the manufacturing history data of that particular tire is essential, with the raw materials inspection results, as the starting point, and going through all manufacturing steps, to the final inspection results and customer claims. This study presents an integrated tire defects diagnostic expert system (TIREDDX) that can be applied during production and service. The main objective of developing a diagnostic integrated expert system is to achieve an integrated diagnostic procedure. The developed system is able to diagnose the probable cause(s) of the defect by tracing the acquired quality and production information at the various steps of tire manufacturing processes, starting from the serial number the defected tire. Implementing such a system significantly reduces the time consumed in tire defect diagnosis, increases the consistency of diagnosing decision-making, and better utilizes the company's management information system. Moreover, it can be regarded as an advisory tool to those having much technical experience and as a training tool for less-experienced personnel those who seek guidance and advice. TIREDDX comprises two main modules: manufacturing history databases and diagnostic expert system. The system was developed and implemented in one of the leading truck tires production companies in Egypt, where satisfactory results were achieved. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.