Editor's note: This is part one of a two-part series on how fleets can get the most from a digital tire management program.
Improper tire inflation is the leading cause of commercial truck tire blowouts and failures. Underinflation causes fleets to prematurely pull tires out of service, while overinflated tires are prone to irregular wear and compromised sidewall strength. Problems also arise when tread depths are mismatched and when fleets mistakenly use the wrong tire for the application, which leads to poor performance and potential hazards on the road.
The good news is that fleet managers now have the technology at their fingertips to help diagnose tire problems before they become a safety risk, put a truck out of service, and cost extra money and unnecessary downtime.
When utilized correctly, a digital tire management program can generate a substantial return on investment (ROI) and help fleets get the most from their tires. Digital tools are also being used to reshape the way technicians diagnose and pinpoint systemic problems across the entire fleet.
In February, Derek Quinn, maintenance manager at Canada-based Len Dubois Trucking, implemented Dana’s Rhombus TireAnalytics system to track tire health on more than 30 trucks and 138 trailers across the carrier’s fleet.
Rhombus provides a guided inspection process via a cloud-based system of record, delivering visibility across all fleet terminals and for all technicians. The system can help fleets maintain proper tire psi; identify issues to help prevent roadside and safety violations; allow technicians to capture, save and share images of their tires; and track information like tread depth and condition to help prevent over-the-road failures.
Although Quinn and the fleet are new to working with the system, in a short period of time Rhombus has helped the fleet identify a couple of problem areas that required immediate attention. One was underinflated tires.
“We noticed when we started checking our units that we had an underinflated tire problem, so we quickly corrected that,” Quinn told FleetOwner. “We had a staff meeting and talked to our technicians to make them aware of what’s going on. We’ve already reduced our underinflated tires by about 20%.”
Rhombus also helped the fleet determine that the maintenance department was pulling tires too soon in many cases because technicians weren’t aware of proper tread wear patterns.
“The best part so far is awareness and what we’re able to do that we didn’t previously have visibility on,” Quinn said. “Knowing the condition of the tires in real-time is going to be a huge benefit to us. Trucks nowadays run so much on extended service intervals, and we don’t see them now for great lengths of time. Having this system in place allows us to act much quicker and in real time.”
Len Dubois Trucking’s fleet makeup is Peterbilt and Volvo trucks, with an average age of two years. The carrier hauls freight for customers in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. In order to get that freight where it needs to be, Len Dubois Trucking has a mix of Bridgestone, Goodyear, and Michelin tires and is putting its faith in Rhombus to get the most out of those assets.
“If you’re a small fleet that has limited staff available, you need to leverage as much technology as you can,” Quinn said. “The reality is I was doing what [Rhombus] did before but manually, so you’re manually capturing data, putting it into a spreadsheet hoping that it’s correct, and then letting the spreadsheet tell you the decisions to make.”
Real-time data and proactive maintenance
The value of a digital tire management program, specifically for safety, cost, and uptime, involves multiple departments within an organization, explained Shaun Hartoog, digital solutions specialist at Dana. “That’s how you can promote or really secure safety in your maintenance operation,” he explained. “That can communicate and translate through the organization all the way up to the financial decision-makers. As data is collected, it can expose and uncover opportunities for driving down costs in other areas of the business.”
From the data that Rhombus collects, Dana has found that mismatched tread depth, or mismatched duals, significantly contribute to poor tire performance.
“Inflation is a major contributor to accelerated tire wear, tire failures, and weakens the tire,” Hartoog said. “Then, you have mismatched duals. That gap in tread depth is ultimately going to affect the tire’s performance and the tire’s life, but there are patterns that develop where those mismatches are occurring on the axles that can help uncover mechanical problems, such as alignment and suspension issues.”
Saving just one or two tires on a trailer can help fleets realize a quicker ROI, noted Craig Smith, marketing manager for P.S.I. With P.S.I. solutions, trucking companies can obtain consolidated information fleet-wide and use a dashboard to analyze data, determine the root cause of a problem, and then implement the steps needed for their whole fleet.
The Meritor Tire Inflation System (MTIS) by P.S.I. is a tire management inflation system that will automatically keep trailer tires inflated properly by maintaining the recommended cold tire pressure. P.S.I. also offers TireView, a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS), and TireView Live, an open platform telematics gateway offering.
“When you look at where fleets are going today, a lot of them are trying to take the drivers out of the equation when it comes to maintenance,” explained Steve Miller, vice president of engineering, P.S.I. "That’s what we’re trying to cover with the solutions that we have. They either want the vehicles to take care of themselves, or they want the information to go to the back office.”
P.S.I.’s TireView and TireView Live offerings allow fleets to analyze data coming off their tires, so they can better schedule maintenance work orders for a particular vehicle. The solutions also help fleets better plan for scheduled downtime rather than sidelining the trailer, Miller pointed out.
Although tires are a critical component of the fleet, they were not necessarily always viewed as part of the connected fleet technology package. That’s at least how Josh Schwartz, head of business development for real-time remote tire management provider Revvo, sees it. He believes now more than ever commercial trucking has an opportunity to look at tires and the data they emit to be in lockstep with the entire ecosystem of fleet technologies.
Revvo, which was founded in 2018, connects tire data to the cloud for fleet operators. The company built a proprietary sensor that sits in a dock within the inner lining of a tire tread wall.
Tire-related data is captured from Revvo sensors and from a fleet’s telematics capabilities and onboard vehicle systems. Data derived from the tires alerts fleets when tires need to be serviced and detects issues like high or low inflation, temperature events, critically low tread, slow leaks, or abnormal wear.
Schwartz pointed out that Revvo is different from a traditional tire-pressure monitoring system, as TPMS is just one facet of what the company offers. “The low-hanging fruit is really just one part of it,” he noted. “There’s lights-on visibility that comes from seeing tire health in real time and then there is the modeling of the data. What can we do to make the data useful in terms of being proactive with maintenance and making it preventive and even using the tire insights from the sensor to be predictive? The point is to recognize when an asset is having a problem and needs to be pulled off the road, which means less downtime and cost for the fleet.”
Gary Schroeder, executive director of Cooper Tire & Rubber’s Global Truck and Bus Tire Business, pointed out that while it all starts with fleets working with their tire dealer to spec the right tire for a specific application, an effective tire maintenance program is equally important to ensure that tires are consistently inflated at optimal levels, tires are regularly rotated, wheels are aligned, and fleets can better identify and document any potential damage to tires.
Cooper also advises fleets to implement scrap tire programs to analyze tires once they’re pulled from service. By doing this, fleets can identify potential troublesome areas that cause early tire failure such as excessive tire scrubbing, flat spotting, and underinflated tires, Schroeder advised.
“An effective tire maintenance program collects data over time and allows for trends to be spotted early on,” Schroeder said. “For example, say a fleet installs new steer tires on 100 power units and notices from the tire maintenance data being collected that 12 months or 100,000 miles into service, 10% of the sets are 90% worn while the other 90% of sets are 50% worn. This should prompt the fleet to look into those early wearing sets and analyze the data to see what is causing early wear. It could be something as simple as the type of route the trucks are running.”
For Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, which recently announced its acquisition of Cooper, tire management means making sure fleets have or are using the correct tools and technology to capture information, explained Austin Crayne, business development lead for Goodyear.
The Akron-based tire manufacturer recently bundled its tire maintenance technologies as a collective offering called Goodyear Complete Tire Management, which comprises Tire Optix, Goodyear TPMS Plus, and Goodyear CheckPoint. All three monitor conditions like tire pressure, temperature, and tread wear and alert fleets to the irregularities that cause roadside breakdowns.
Tire Optix is a digital inspection toolset that can be paired with an app to help fleets detect tire pressure, tread depth, and tire wear conditions. It also provides fleets with real-time alerts and inspection results. CheckPoint is a drive-over reader device that provides automated inspections of tire pressure and tread depth. Positioned at a fleet yard entrance, the in-ground device scans passing trucks and triggers alerts to the maintenance department if there are any immediate tire concerns that require attention. TPMS Plus is an on-vehicle, active monitoring system that evaluates tire conditions in real-time using fleet-specific algorithms that help fleets identify issues like tire air leaks and high temperatures, as well as predictive analytics.
“In all of those cases, you’re getting actionable information on the health and status of the tires across your fleet, and that’s what really allows fleets to make decisions for their tire program,” Crayne said. “Those types of technologies have really helped fleets stay ahead of things and if something starts to occur or they see an issue, they can jump on it right away.”
Predictive technology
A total tire management strategy should encompass fleet equipment inventory, tire selection, tracking, preventive maintenance, expected casing life, pressure and tread data, loads carried, miles achieved from tires and retreads, inspection frequency, removal timeline, casing management, scrap tire analysis, end-of-life inspection, data analysis, retread guideline, inventory of automatic inflation devices, driver training, and budget review, according to Brandon Gray, operational marketing manager, B2B Services, for Michelin North America.
An extensive strategy will help fleets report fewer tire-related roadside service calls, implement more successful retread programs, and overall lower cost per mile for tires. Plus, a well-managed program will ideally save fleets from CSA violations, downtime, and unplanned expenses.
Michelin offers several solutions to help fleets with preventive maintenance and roadside service to keep their vehicles properly maintained. Michelin Tire Care is a predictive program for fleets that helps maximize their tires and anticipate future tire needs. Through the Michelin Commercial Service Network, tires are inspected onsite for events such as signs of low tire pressure, irregular tire wear, and uneven tread depths.
Michelin North America has also deployed technology to help fleets evaluate their tire health. Michelin has been including unique radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags in its new commercial tires for the past several years to help support tire life cycle usage analytics.
“Preferably, all tires coming out of service should be evaluated for damage and tracked for performance,” Gray explained. “This evaluation will help the fleet determine the best future selections for the application for the best overall value. This analysis could point to application, pressure, vehicle alignment as well as many other issues.”
Bridgestone offers a mobility solution called IntelliTire, a connected tire management platform that reads tire pressure at every wheel position and can detect slow leaks before they become a safety issue. A valve stem-mounted TPMS reader is connected to the tire, and information is gathered, processed, and sent back to the driver or technician in the form of a status update or recommendation if service is required. According to Jamie Barnett, Bridgestone product business manager, this allows the fleet to conduct preventive maintenance before an incident occurs.
Barnett added that normal TPMS sensors don’t create an alert until a tire has reached a critical pressure threshold, but smart sensing technology detects pressure change trends and alerts the driver when a leak is detected. This technology can also help a driver understand how long they’ll have before tire maintenance is absolutely necessary, Barnett explained.
The second part of this two-part series will cover managing tire pressure and tread depth.
