Disclosed is a method and an assembly for applying a tire component onto a receiving member. The method includes the steps of: receiving the tire component on the apply member; detecting a plurality of leading endpoints at the leading edge and detecting a plurality of trailing endpoints at the trailing edge in-line with the leading endpoints in the longitudinal direction; determining the distance in the longitudinal direction between the leading endpoint and the trailing endpoint for each pair of endpoints; driving the apply member at an apply speed in a transfer direction to transfer the tire component onto the receiving member while driving the receiving member at a receiving speed; and adjusting the ratio between the apply speed and the receiving speed during the transfer of the tire component in the order in which the pairs of endpoints are spliced to improve the relative positioning of each pair of endpoints for splicing.