“Once they know this information and are comfortable with the data, they can begin to evaluate other products against these performance benchmarks,” explained Walt Weller, CMA vice president, which makes the Double Coin tire brand. “Aside from this, a look at what drives their tire expenses might reveal some areas of opportunity. For instance, a fleet manager might find that they are generating inordinately high tire expenses from emergency breakdowns. By identifying this and examining the causes they may take a different approach that would reduce this expense area.”
Of course, each fleet operation is different and the needs of the fleet will vary from application to application. Fleets should always have a good written maintenance policy in place to specify the maintenance practices they want followed. This policy should be specific to their vehicles, equipment, geography, distance they travel, loads they carry, time on the road and other pertinent factors. It should also cover the specifics of new replacement tires entering their fleet, as well as a retreading policy, explained Paul Crehan, director of product marketing, Michelin Truck Tires. A part of this maintenance policy should include scrap analysis.
“The scrap tire analysis can provide clues to what is working and what isn’t,” Schroeder said. “It may highlight that improvements need to be made to maintenance practices like inflation pressure maintenance, vehicle alignment or repair practices. It can also give insight into a fleet’s specs on allowable casing age and number of retreads.”
[Editor’s note: For an in-depth look at scrap tire analysis, don’t miss Fleet Equipment’s Tire Care feature story.]
“The real goal is reducing tire running costs, and obviously tire running costs are a function of cost and performance,” CMA’s Weller said. “In most fleets, even seemingly small improvements can mean large dollar savings. Taking a Kaizen approach [small continuous improvements] to this is the best approach. The important thing to remember is that this is a goal that is never achieved.”
Data! Analytics! Action!
Once you’ve collected your tire data, you need to analyze it, set your expectations and take action to improve your tire performance. Michelin’s Crehan explains:
“It is an important step for fleet managers to analyze the history of their scrap tires and evaluate and determine the type of tire damage, the vehicles on which the tires were operating, as well as the areas they operate. If there is a lot of damage, it is crucial to determine the source of the damage. Key to the evaluation is tire manufacturer, tire design, tire size, ply rating, age, number of retreads, casing condition, tread depth, load distribution and alignment. If the problem is accurately diagnosed, changes and new practices can be implemented to correct the issue. The most common scrap tire conditions include, run flat, air infiltration, pinch shock, bead damage, poor repairs, impact damage and fatigue related damage.”
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