The 15th -17th September 2010 saw representatives from 6 of Falken's pool of dealers having the opportunity to visit the SSW factory, which is located in 111/2, Moo 2m Highway 340 Suphanburi Road, Ambon Saiyai, Amphur Sainoi Nonthburu, Bangkok.

The dealers that were entitled for the trip were Sun Wiz, Soh Brothers, Kian Siang, Auto Jaya, CS Kuantan and Hua Hin. Leading them was STM CEO, S.K. Cham and AM Man-ager Ang Beng Loo.

The highly technological wheel manufacturing facility in Thailand was set-up by Stamford Tyres since year 2004 and is situated in a 30,000sqm piece of land with the factory occupying an area of 19,600sqm. The maximum production capacity for this facil-ity is at 900,000 pcs/year and the size ranges from 13"-26" for passenger cars, SUV. MPV and light trucks.

During the visit the dealers were given a tour of the facility, seeing first hand for themselves on the whole production process of SSW high quality alloy wheels.

The first stage that the dealers wit-ness was the melting process, whereby alumi-num ingot which are imported from Australia and Dubai are melted before moving on to the next process, casting. Once this is done the wheels are send for heat treatment after which machining of the wheels will be done. Once this is done, the wheels will be sent for run out, balancing and air leak test.

A surface pre treatment will then be done before the wheels are sent to the paint line. After the whole process, the wheels will be inspected for one final time before being packaged and sent to the warehouse for storage.

After the tour, the dealers were most impressed with what they saw and this serves to reinforce their confidence in the quality of SSW wheels.