iTECH: Tire Maintenance in the Information Age

Tracking systems to help fleets analyze the performance of the tires on their trucks and trailers have come of age — specifically the information age — and the data they compile can help carriers maximize every dollar spent on tires, according to manufacturers.

At Wingfoot Commercial Tire Systems, Fort Smith, Ark., employees use a handheld device that gathers input on tread depth, air pressure, mileage and irregular wear conditions, among other things.

Mark Totten, Wingfoot’s vice president of sales and marketing, said the immediate capture, processing and forwarding of this information to carriers allows fleet managers to accurately detect current and potential problems with the tires that carry their equipment — thus helping them get a better handle on the cost of repairs or, if needed, replacements.

“If I say I am going to cut his cost of operations down, I have to be able to show proof that it is happening. So it’s the baseline of the cost savings,” Totten said of the electronic tire data.

Continental Tire the Americas LLC, Fort Mill, S.C., said it began rolling out a tire-management program last year. ContiTrack 2 uses Bluetooth-linked electronics and integrated software to measure and record tread depth, wear characteristics and air pressure. It then adds that information to a management system database.

The program is under way, using some of Continental’s sales representatives in Georgia, North Carolina, Canada, Brazil and Ecuador.

“There currently are 21 ContiTrack 2 systems in use in this country and Canada, expanding to 25 users first-quarter 2012. We introduced these systems to our district managers first as they are responsible for the largekey fleet targets. The Phase Two rollout will include key territory sales managers that also have responsibility for key fleet partners,” Clif Armstrong, Continental’s director of marketing for commercial vehicle tires the Americas, said in an e-mail.

Continental said the system has the ability to highlight key performance indicators such as projected mileage and costs per mile; loss calculations because of improper air inflation and improper tire matching; dollar value of tires in the fleet based on tread depths and tire types; projections of upcoming tire needs based on fleet tire pull points; and stoplight reporting of conditions that require immediate action by the fleet.

Kevin Naumann, a training manager for Continental who is based in Charlotte, N.C., said, “The reports give a road map of what needs to be done.”

Armstrong added, “Once we have the tool completely integrated to all of our sales teams, we will be working with select customers — both Continental servicing tire dealers and Continental fleet partners — to offer the tool and software for their use.”

Kevin Rohlwing, senior vice president of training for the Tire Industry Association, Bowie, Md., said there also was a tremendous amount of potential in using radio-frequency-identification tags on tires to store information. RFID tags use radio waves to transfer data to a reader.

“The tag is built into the tire and that information, that record, stays with the tire while it is in service” and can be accessed at anytime, Rohlwing said.

Danny Boahn, commercial tire sales director for Black’s Tire and Auto Service, Fayetteville, N.C. — which is a member of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s FleetHQ service network — said the manufacturer “is experimenting with chip technology.” FleetHQ offers replacement tires, detailed tire and service reporting, roadside service, on-site tire management and consolidated invoicing, among other features, for fleets of all sizes.

The chip technology involves having tags placed in tires that link them to a specific vehicle and store information that will tell Goodyear technicians when they inspect the fleet the tire’s size and proper level of inflation, and where and when it was made, for example.

“It’s the huge thing I am waiting for,” Boahn said. “It will be more convenient and take some of the stress off us.”

He also said he expects the chips would be able to read tire pressure, but questions whether they will be able to “read temperature, mileage, [or the remaining usable tread] on tires?”

Boahn said TV Track, Goodyear’s online tire-management tool, consolidates data his technicians gather with iPads and mobile phones.

“Fleets can see what is happening with the tires they selected in real time [with an upload to Goodyear’s website]. It is especially useful if they are comparing different brands of tires. It can show a tire’s cost per mile. Some fleets, like waste haulers, are now looking at the tire in terms of cost per hour.”

Black’s uses the system to service fleets ranging in size from six trucks to 400, he added.

While some fleets outsource tire maintenance, Gordon Trucking Inc., Pacific, Wash., prefers to handle the job itself for the most part.

“Just because you are doing business with somebody doesn’t mean that they are going to follow your rules to a T,” said Kirk Altrichter, GTI’s vice president of maintenance. The fleet’s employees inspect and service almost all of its tires.

Sean Bolan, GTI’s director of tire programs, said the carrier only will use vendors for routine tire service on equipment, such as trailers, at a dedicated location outside the reach of GTI’s eight service locations.

In that case, GTI sets up a tire bank and requires the tire vendor to provide biweekly inventory reports, “basically an inventory of all the casings they have on hand,” he said.

The fleet “has about 10 banks around the country,” Altrichter said in an e-mail.

GTI’s vendors include Tire Centers Inc., Meekhof Tire and Bauer Built, “to name a few,” he said. The basic requirement for each is that they must be a Michelin dealer and retreader.

“Michelin is our tire of choice, so we prefer to use banks that can retread with Michelin rubber,” Bolan said.

He added that the reputation and integrity of the dealer is very important: “If we have used the dealer before, we consider how they have performed and our relationship with them.”

Bolan said another key consideration is a vendor’s willingness to negotiate.

“When we approach a dealer, we provide a proposal packet that outlines our tire policies, pricing desires, and service expectations,” Altrichter said.

Altrichter said both he and Bolan review proposals and decide on the next steps.

Bolan said the vendors, on a monthly basis, provide a scrap-tire analysis that includes the age of the casing, the number of retreads, and what was the reason for failure. He said that data is recorded and shared using the Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standard for scrap tires.

VMRS, which American Trucking Associations’ Technology and Maintenance Council introduced in 1970, is a method for reporting maintenance that includes universal equipment classification codes, labor codes, part description codes and manufacturer/supplier/brand codes.

Bolan said the scrap-tire data allows the company to “put metrics together by wheel position, to identify cost by position and to see where the highest wear is occurring. [If] we have a bad choice of products or a problem with alignment or any number of factors, it allows us the ability to analyze the data and identify areas for improvement.”

Altrichter said there are 65,000 tires in GTI’s system and standard practice is to check them at fuel-island inspections and at the preventive-maintenance interval, which for trucks is about every 45 days and for trailers every 90 days.

The truckload carrier ranks No. 64 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada.

“We have our standards in place for specific reasons. When you set standards, it’s very easy to maintain them in your own facility, but harder to do so across a vendor network,” Altrichter said.

Everybody who joins GTI as a technician is trained to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s standard (29 CFR 1910.177) for servicing tires, he said.

And the company provides additional training, including that offered by the Tire Industry Association, on personal protective equipment, how to mount and dismount tires, injury prevention and proper methods for lifting, among other procedures.