Tire Tracking: How Much Is Enough?
JOHN BENDEL
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Tires cost money, lots of it. So tires should be monitored and maintained for optimum usage. Computer software has made that possible for virtually any size fleet.
But just how far should that monitoring go?
Should tires be tracked in groups, like many inventory items? Should tire experience and wear be sampled from representative tires and extrapolated for fleet-wide conclusions?
Or should every tire be individually identified when it first enters the fleet — on a new truck, as a replacement or in inventory — and tracked in detail over its entire life?
For many fleets, the answer is somewhere in the middle. The question is: at what point do the benefits outweigh the cost?
There are two essential points of view in this debate. For the sake of discussion, we'll refer to the detailed tracking as "tire management" and the less detailed approach as "tire maintenance."
Tire maintenance advocates use software to track tires by sampling (see sidebar) or in groups — by size and brand name, for example.
"Say you've got 10 General 11245 tires in stock. We just call them General 11245 and you have 10 of them — not individually identified," said Charles Arsenault, president of Arsenault Associates, a maintenance software provider. Arsenault's Dossier32 product includes a tire tracking module.
Arsenault said tire maintenance enables users to track the cost of tires per vehicle, per mile.
"That would relate to all tire maintenance, tire repair, tire replacement on that particular vehicle divided by the mileage or hours it operated," Arsenault said.
Tire management proponents say that's not enough. Steve Pheil, VP with International Marketing Inc., distributor of tire products including the AUDIT Professional Tire Management System, said that tire tracking should include detailed histories of individual tires.
"This data — once built, stored and historically compiled <->—presents a picture of what tires would be best matched up with each other on a free-rolling axle or a drive axle, in what condition, under what power plant, etc.," he said.
Detailed tire management can also project inventory needs and determine tire rotations and removal dates.
The Case For Detailed Tire Management
The tire management process begins with "branding," marking every tire with a unique identification number or code, which sets up one benefit right away - fleets that properly care for tires can be sure that the well maintained casings they send out for recapping are the casings they get back, Pheil said.
Other benefits kick in quickly. "The first few years certain percentages of return come just from the methodology that's in place. It's meaningful as opposed to, 'Hey, we've got a flat tire, let's change that tire,'" said Pheil.
"As you go through the phases of implementing tire management, coincidentally you're also implementing routine daily, weekly, monthly tire maintenance; so certain savings are realized as the history is developed."
But history remains the key to long-term benefits.
"You know that steer tires are on the front axle of the truck for 10, 12, 14 months. There's a year. Drive tires are on maybe 18 to 24 or 30 months. There's two years. So you start going through these life cycles or tread miles, gathering that information and learning what is the best tire for the best axle or wheel position for the best power unit on that particular route in that geographic region. It takes time to compile that information," Pheil explained.
Pheil said IMI's AUDIT system includes handheld devices for measuring tread depth and gathering other data. The software was originally developed by Tony Nicolini, a Bandag dealer in Brazil in the early 1980s. Pheil said the product has matured over time.
"We know through millions of miles and years of working with this software in Africa, Europe, Australia, South America and North America, that each fleet is unique, each truck is different, each driver is different and each one of those aspects affect tire wear and should have an impact on the savings.
"We don't believe in sampling. It doesn't bring that level of detail. We don't care whose tire they use. We don't care what retread process they use. The data speaks for itself," he said.
Gathering that data is an important element in the AUDIT system.
"We wanted a durable, simple, human interface and a handheld device that can be used in the field to record and store digitally accurate tread depth readings, air pressure readings and, by the way, if we're going to go to the bother of sticking something on the valve stem we want to have our tools automatically inflate the tire to software-specified parameters for that vehicle, that axle," he said.
According to Pheil, the return on successful tire management can be phenomenal.
"We have fleets that say they've saved over 40% using software to manage tires. The next fleet may be 10 or 15%," he said.
AUDIT system interfaces with TMT Software's Transman fleet maintenance software for Windows.
The Case For Less Detailed Tracking
Charles Arsenault admits that detailed tire maintenance is a good idea.
"But what we've identified over the years is that detailed tire tracking — tire management of that style — the cost of it is just equal to the savings. That's always been a major problem because, let's say we have 100 tractors and we've got 10 tires per tractor. You can see how many tires we have," he said.
Arsenault said tire management involves accurate measurements of air-pressure, tread depth and vehicle mileage on every vehicle.
"It may take you almost week to get that kind of information on every tire. So by the time you get to the last tire, it's time to go back and start taking the tread-depth on the first one again," he said.
"The problem is, you're paying someone $10 or $15 an hour to do this. So it's going to cost you $20,000 to $25,000 a year to get this information. That does not guarantee that you're going to save any money. It's just costing you that to collect the information," he said.
And the information you get may not be what you need, he explained.
"A lot of people go out and take one reading. Well, one reading is a false reading. You really should take it at five places around the tire. The reason is you can get uneven wear. If you don't do it that way you're going to get false readings on per-32nd (of an inch) wear. Now you have 1,000 tires times five readings per tire. "
So while it looks appropriate, in reality it can be very unproductive because the value of the savings you derive can be offset significantly by the cost of actually doing it.
"A lot of times what happens is, everybody says they want to do it. They start to do it, and generally in 90 to 180 days they give it up. It's just too much work for the existing staff," Arsenault said.
A Middle Ground
Arsenault said that detailed tire management is entirely appropriate for some fleets.
"If you are a large organization, a Schneider or what-have-you, you have people who are dedicated to tires. In that case it makes sense to have your staff of tire people gather the information," he said.
And there are other options, particular tire tracking programs offered by tire dealers.
"By giving this to the third party you can concentrate on the details of operating your fleet. At least you know it will be accomplished, and better than your own in-house staff can do it. Besides, you have to buy your tires somewhere," he said.
As it happens, Pheil's company provides another software product to help tire dealers track fleet customer tires. It's called SNAPSHOT, which facilitates fleet tire surveys.
"Where are the tread depths? Where are the air pressures? Did we re-air the tires? What tires should be pulled because they're at full point? What tires should come off because they're flat or they have objects in them? What tires should be rotated from one vehicle to the next to better match tread depth?
"These are maintenance issues that should be dealt with on a routine basis. Tire identification is not required to perform that function. You're not interested in history; you're interested in today, a snapshot picture of the fleet, the condition of the tires," Pheil explained.
Arsenault said his Dossier32 maintenance software is capable of tracking tires in the degree of detail decided by the customer.
"Do what you can do," he said. "If you can get fancy, and if you have the extra staff, then take the next step, which is to go to the tire-by-tire instead of the bulk."
Sidebar
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., offers Fleet Management Tools
