Tokyo (October 17, 2016) - Bridgestone Corporation (Bridgestone) announced today that it will introduce its EXAMATION^*1 tire assembling^*2 system at its Tatabánya Plant, a passenger car tire plant in Hungary, during 2016. Designed to further improve quality and help realize high levels of productivity with regard to tire production technologies, this state-of-the-art system combines Bridgestone's proprietary information and communication technologies (ICT) with a new artificial intelligence (AI). The introduction of this system at the Tatabánya Plant follows the installation of the same system at the Bridgestone Group's flagship Hikone Plant^*3 and will be the first time this system is introduced overseas.

The Tatabánya Plant is set to have its production capacity increased by approximately 12,000 tires a day during the first half of 2017, raising its total production capacity to around 18,000 tires a day. The introduction of the EXAMATION system will be conducted as part of this capacity increase.

In addition, Bridgestone later plans to introduce the EXAMATION into the new Russia Plant scheduled to commence operation during 2016.

Bridgestone will continue developing and deploying innovative production technologies to strengthen its production competitiveness while at the same time seeking to provide customers with even higher quality products.

Exterior of EXAMATION system unit

Overview of Tatabánya Plant

*1. Assembling: Process of forming tires by assembling rubber, belts, cords, and various other parts *2. EXAMATION: Bridgestone product trademark that is a combination of evolutional, revolutionary (x), attractive, and AutoMATION *3. News release regarding introduction of EXAMATION system at the Hikone Plant: http://www.bridgestone.com/corporate/news/2016061301.html