Michelin Goes A Step Further And Delivers A Smart System
The concept of a tire with built-in intelligence has held out the promise of better, potentially lower cost tire management for at least a decade. The leading tire companies -- notably Bridgestone/Firestone, Goodyear and Michelin -- have researched putting electronic transponders in truck tires that would deliver a range of data: tire pressure, tire temperature, tire mileage and tire identity. But industry wisdom has said fleets would pay no more than $10 per tire for the technology.
Michelin, however, is launching its eTire technology at a significantly higher price point and fleets are expressing major interest, says Randy Clark, Michelin's vice president of marketing for truck tires. The difference here, he says, is that eTire is a complete tire management system, not a smart tire.
In fact, the tire is just as dumb as ever. A modicum of smarts reside on a less-than-one ounce Texas Instruments transponder that mounts to a rubber boss attached to the inside of the tire low down near the bead. The real smarts are in the software that pulls the pieces together into a very flexible, very powerful and Internet-enabled tire management system. Moreover, it offers fully automated data collection that provides complete cradle-to-grave management of every single tire in a truck fleet whatever the brand.
eTire And Bib Track
eTire is a system that tracks tires by identification number and reports on tire pressures. The key is that most all the data is gathered and updated to the fleet's database automatically by an in-ground or gantry-mounted drive-by reader (DBR).
Data is also gathered using a hand-held wand. In either case, the antenna is also the power source, prompting the InTire sensor to take a pressure reading and upload it, along with a date and time stamp and tire ID number.
Using this technology, Michelin answers one of the big problems with in-tire sensors: how to make the transponder last throughout the lifetime of the tire <-> including the retread process. By eliminating an on-board battery, the life of the sensor is extended indefinitely and it stays mounted to the tire through as many retreadings as the fleet can gain from the casing.
According to Clark, the sensors are designed to be so simple and rugged they will last not only through the retread process, but beyond the life of the tire. So while each has a unique ID number, at the end of the useful life of a tire the lifetime data is archived and the sensor freed up to start over on a new tire, potentially reducing the sensor-per-tire investment with every new application.
Data collected by and from the readers is uploaded to the Internet, automatically loaded into the database and made available virtually in real time to the fleet manager and the maintenance shop also over the Internet, through the Bib Track software.
Data And Decisions
The data collected is relatively simple. The results, however, promise great power.
In a 5-mph pass by the reader, the truck or trailer transponder (each is considered an individual vehicle in Bib Track) broadcasts the vehicle identity via a sensor similar to the one in the tires. The vehicle tag is already logged into the Michelin database. The reader then IDs the tires by axle and wheel position, transmitting a cold-equivalent tire pressure over the reader/Internet connection. As the driver pulls through the DBR lane, the information uploads to the fleet's unique database on Michelin's server and compares the pressures recorded with the fleet's criteria. All tires are logged by date and time, including any tire pressure that is outside the established parameters. That out-of-criteria pressure triggers a return signal via the Internet back to the DBR, where a red traffic signal at the end of the lane tells the driver that something is amiss with tire pressures.
If the tire lane is at a truck terminal such as a safety lane the driver can head for the shop. There, maintenance staff can immediately open a report that shows the tires with the pressures for each wheel position identified.
This not only immediately identifies which tires on the combination are outside the criteria, it also posts a recommended activity, i.e. add 12 psi, if the tire is that much below the fleet set point. The software will even recommend removal and repair if pressures are 20% or more below recommended, an industry norm.
To get the cold-equivalent pressure from a tire that has just come in from the road, the InTire Sensor also reads the temperature in the tire and makes a pressure correction. In this way, the DBR is much more accurate than any tire gauging fleets currently perform on an in-bound safety lane, says Michelin's Clark.
Should the tire require just airing up, the activity is noted on the database. Should the same tire subsequently require action at another eTire check, the fleet manager will see it on the report and know to attend to the "leaker" before it becomes another alligator out on the highway.
The Bib Track software makes tire tracking as painless as possible. In the Michelin demo that has been traveling around the country during the summer, Mike Yolman and Phil Arnold, both e-commerce product managers for Michelin, demonstrated how tires fitted with InTire Sensors were placed in inventory as spares, and entered into the Bib Track system using the hand-held scanner. They were then fitted to a tractor-trailer, and the first time it drove by the in-ground reader, the software automatically allocated the tire IDs to this vehicle and showed them in the correct wheel positions. As the information including the tire pressures was updated to the vehicles via the Bib-Track system, the tires were also removed from the in-rack inventory.
Hand-Held Reader
While the drive-by reader enables the facility to read the tires at 5 mph, completing a number of data entry tasks, these chores and others can also be completed by the hand-held reader. It can, of course, scan the tire for pressure and ID. But the keypad and menu-driven prompts allow for a whole series of other data to be collected and posted. These include tire repair, cost of repair, tire mount and de-mount, retreading, identification of brand and tread and many more. Used in conjunction with a tread-depth gauge, the wand will prompt for the readings, providing fields for the technician to enter the information.
While not as fast as the DBR, it is still vastly quicker and more accurate than checking pressures with a tire gauge and, because the data is uploaded automatically once the reader is returned to its cradle, the data is not corrupted in any keyboarding operation during data entry.
Michelin sees the reader as being an essential part of the system for any medium to large fleet, since it allows for the greatest efficiency in using the power of the Bib Track software. But for smaller fleets, private fleets, leased trucks and so on, the reader could be used by a Michelin dealer providing a tire service. Similarly, the DBR could be embedded at a fleet terminal, at a tire dealer, truck dealer or truckstop. Each broadcasts its location with the tire information so a fleet knows where a truck is located if there is any out-of-criteria pressure reading.
There are obvious implications for truckstops, which could provide tire pressure checking services should eTire become widespread. The service could be provided on a fee basis, or as a value-added feature where fuel purchases are already negotiated, suggests Clark.
During the summer-long demos, Clark said, one fleet executive even suggested the system could act as a vehicle inventory control at a terminal by having a tire lane at the entry gate and another at the exit. The Bib-Track system would log a tractor or trailer in as it arrived and then out as it left. This was a use Michelin hadn't even considered, said Clark.
Even individual owner-operators could conceivably use the system in association with a tire dealer, a truck dealer or the fleet they're leased to. All they would need is an entry on the database. If they crossed a reader and pulled a red light, they could go onto the Internet, pull their own report and find the low tire pressure without ever pulling out a tire gauge.
Reports
The power of the system is in the reports. Tires destined for early-spotted punctures and other repairs can be quickly detected in exception reports. Tire costs can be captured by type, wheel position, even by original tread versus retread mileage. A tire manager can have information that tells him whether retreading a fourth time, for instance, makes better sense than scrapping and replacing. And when the tire is scrapped, the tag can be removed from a scrap tire and its history archived. Then it can start life anew as the ID for a new tire placed in service. Michelin says there is no data on the life of the InTire Sensor, but it has been designed for long service.
The sensors provide no way of measuring or inputting mileage. However, the Bib Track software is designed to accept flat-file information from other fleet systems, such as fuel purchase or maintenance management programs. These update to vehicle records and from there to the individual tires.
Because the data is available over the Internet, tire managers and fleet executives can access Bib Track wherever they have Internet access. The interface is through a regular browser and the learning curve for the software is short. All that is required is to learn where the different reports are to be found and their formats.
And the software is free to eTire users.
A fleet buys the transponders from its Michelin dealer. In future, the InTire Sensors may be available when tires are assembled to a vehicle, should a fleet desire it, says Clark, since Michelin already line-sets tires for some OEMs. And, because the sensor fits to a bonded-in patch, there is every reason to anticipate the sensors could be embedded into tires from any of the fleets' preferred suppliers.
Cost And Payback
The cost, and more importantly, the payback is for every fleet to decide. There will be some cases where tire management is such an imperative that this will be an essential business tool. There are other instances where it makes no sense, Michelin candidly admits. And a decision is not dictated by fleet size. An owner-operator might decide the convenience and the elimination of a leaking tire and the resultant unscheduled downtime and road-call cost make the investment in 18 sensors a worthwhile expense. Driving across a reader once a day -- even paying a nominal fee for the privilege -- may be a sound investment.
For fleets that see the potential benefits in getting a real handle on tire management, a boost in safety, better on-time performance, technician efficiency, tire costs and so on, there are spreadsheets to help define the payback.
There are certainly fleets where tire records can be adequately kept by using pressure gauges and paper records. But for technology leaders looking to reduce the third biggest cost in any trucking operation, eTire may be the tool that gets them there.
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