PEGGY FISHER: Digital age changing how commercial dealers operate

Technology is moving at an ever-increasing rate in the trucking industry.

Telematics, which involves sending data from a vehicle via satellite, cellular networks, Wi-Fi or any other means, has been revolutionizing the industry for more than 25 years, but its adoption rate has increased exponentially with the government's mandate of electronic logging devices (ELDs), which track hours-of-service. The mandate became effective in April.

While most large truckload carriers already were using these devices, medium-sized and small carriers were dragged kicking and screaming into this new technological age. Many are now seeing the positive benefits technology can have on other areas of their operations and bottom lines.

One example of this is the use of electronic driver vehicle inspection reports (eDVIR) solutions. As you are probably aware, the Department of Transportation (DOT) requires that drivers inspect their vehicles before and after every trip to ensure they are roadworthy and report any deficiencies so that they can be properly repaired.

In the past, this has been done with paper and pen, and most fleets used DVIR log books for this purpose. Today, many ELDs also provide eDVIRs that are integrated into fleets' management software suites.

Drivers can download an app to their phones or use the telematics device in the truck cab to complete the report and fleet managers can access this data on the provider's web portal almost immediately.

Use of this technology makes real- time equipment decisions possible before a larger maintenance issue happens on the road or a CSA inspector puts the vehicle out-of-service.

Technology also is enabling fleets to diagnose a vehicle's problems remotely. Connected diagnostics provides fleets with access to fault codes and tire alerts and status information as well as guidance in rectifying the situation. Some second-generation tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS 2.0) even forecast how much time the tire has before it reaches 50 psi, which is considered flat. This enables fleet managers to plan for service depending on location and information provided in the diagnosis, which increases uptime and improves productivity.

Now that technology has overrun the trucking industry, fleets are expecting to see technology used to improve their tire programs and reduce costs. As fleets become more sophisticated, their need for accurate, real-time, actionable data is increasing.

As a result top-tier tire producers have been developing portfolios of outsourcing options from which fleets can choose. The implementers of these programs are, of course, commercial tire dealers.

The biggest cost items fleets have that stem directly from their tire programs are enroute breakdowns, lost vehicle and driver productivity, CSA violations and increased fuel consumption from improperly inflated tires.

According to Michelin, about one out of five vehicles inspected in its Michelin Tire Care program has tires with critical issues that require immediate attention to prevent an emergency breakdown or CSA out-of-service violation. Another 63 percent have issues that are not critical but that will result in additional long-term costs such as increased fuel consumption and irregular tire wear.

These results are very similar to a survey published by the Technology and Maintenance Council (TMC) in 2002. It was found that only 44 percent of 35,128 tires in the survey were inflated within +/- 5 psi of their targeted air pressure, 22 percent (4,786 trucks and tractors, 1,301 trailers and 1,500 motor coaches) had at least one tire underinflated by 20 psi or more, and 4 percent had at least one flat tire (50 psi below targeted pressure).

Obviously, not much has changed in 16 years. But it needs to and it will if technology is employed to address this dreadful situation.

It could be said that until now commercial tire dealers have been rather reticent to jump on the technology bandwagon.

However, those dealers that want to provide customized tire maintenance programs that meet their commercial customers' budget requirements and provide them with timely data that can be used for effective decision making recognize the need to adopt technologies, such as those used in Michelin's Tire Care, Goodyear's Tire Optix and Bridgestone's BASys programs.

Most technicians measure tire inflation pressure and tread depth with a manual gauge and write it down on paper carried around the yard on a clipboard. Later they key the data into a computer in their office.

It can take days to relay this information back to a fleet or generate a report to present to the customer. However, with the technology available today, the task of taking a fleet survey is made much easier, and data analysis is much faster.

New products available today include scanning tools, PDAs and apps that collect and record tire pressure and tread depth data electronically and then upload this information automatically to a cloud-based platform in real time. Data can then be either downloaded or accessed by fleets on a web portal for immediate viewing.

You can use this technology to identify your fleet customer's tire service requirements in real-time, schedule site visits, optimize servicing, modernize and streamline your service operations, and automatically generate reports.

You also can monitor your customers' tire performance and costs, which can enable you to recommend the best tires for their operations in addition to forecasting and monitoring the inventory levels you should keep on hand for them. This not only improves fleet uptime and tire asset utilization but improves your company's productivity, reduces your labor, enables you to provide more robust tire management programs and services and enhances the expertise you provide.

Some fleets are now running TPMS 2.0 systems that integrate TPMS with telematics. These systems monitor tire pressure and temperature continuously and send alerts to anyone, including the fleet's tire dealer and call center when tire metrics cross alert thresholds.

Some of these systems provide specific instructions for addressing each tire problem. Since tire data are stored in the cloud and accessible on demand, dealers who are given access to the app can see where vehicles with problem tires are, the severity of the problems and how much time they have until the tires reach 50 psi and will incur run-flat damage.

This helps prioritize service and dispatch technicians efficiently and effectively. It also ensures that service work is performed according to each fleet's specifications as target pressures and the number of pounds of pressure to adjust tires to are provided eliminating poor quality service due to uncalibrated gauges.

Fleet-yard checks are made much more efficient since reports/work orders can be generated that advise technicians of all the vehicles in the yard that have tires with inflation issues.

Technicians still must inspect tires for treadwear and casing conditions but never have to gauge a tire again. This greatly increases technician productivity and generates more revenue per hour since no time is wasted hunting for underinflated tires.

I have noticed lately that more fleets are showing interest in tracking their tire assets in order to watch and reduce tire costs. Tracking tires is a real pain in the butt for fleets.

Historically, fleets have had to brand tires with a unique number, record the movement of tires from one vehicle to another, the costs of repairs, number and cost of retreads, and scrap tire costs. (This was originally done by hand and then by computer.)

For any fleet larger than five trucks, this is an enormous and almost impossible task that generates reams of data that some poor soul has to make sense of. As a result, most fleets don't even try to track tires anymore.

But technology is about to change that, too. Just recently it was announced that a universal ISO standard for RFID (Radio Frequency Identifiers) tire tags is expected to be available by year-end 2019. An RFID tag has a chip that stores and processes information and an antenna to receive and transmit a signal.

The tag contains the specific serial number of the tire. Tire tags are passive and do not have a battery. They can be embedded in the tire during the manufacturing process or embedded in a tire patch that is cold cured to the tire in the aftermarket. When a reader/interrogator sends a radio signal to the tag, it wakes it up and requests an answer. The tag then transmits back its unique ID number.

A complete tire tag solution includes a reader as well as software. There are readers on the market today that will read RFIDs, take tread depths and interrogate TPMS sensors to obtain tire pressures and temperatures. The readers send this information wirelessly to a PDA, which then communicates the data to the fleet or a web portal.

Once the RFID number is entered into the software, a tire's mileage, associated costs, number of retreads, repairs it has received, its pressure and temperature history, tread depths and cause of failure, etc. can be linked to it so that fleets and/or their tire dealers are able to analyze all the data in the database to determine the best tires and retreads to run as well as make other informed decisions such as the number of times to retread, age limits on retreading if any, detect problems with particular tires, and if improvements in tire maintenance should be made.

Tire makers will use RFIDs to track tires through the manufacturing process, inventory and shipping to its final point of sale and end user. Tire dealers will use RFIDs to monitor and manage their tire inventories.

Fleets will use RFIDs to track each tire's history, which can be stored in the cloud hosted by the tire manufacturer or in the fleet's maintenance management software program. Retreaders can use RFIDs to track the tire from pickup at the fleet location through the retread process and delivery back to the fleet, since RFIDs have been proven reliable enough to retread numerous times. Technicians will scan the RFID on tires they work on to record onsite and emergency breakdown service. And when a tire recall occurs, it will make finding recalled tires so much easier.

RFIDs are creeping into regulations in countries around the world. There is a law now in the United Arab Emirates that requires individual tire production data be directly associated with a car and therefore its end-user.

RFID technology makes meeting this requirement easy. These regulations are expected to be implemented within several other regions around the world and will no doubt motivate tire companies to implement RFIDs sooner rather than later.

As you can see, technology is going to affect every aspect of the commercial tire industry and will change how you do every aspect of your business. For those of you who are fearful of change, there is nothing to be afraid of.

Technology is going to make your life easier, give you visibility of tire problems, status and data that will enable you to run your business more efficiently, intelligently and successfully.

And, oh, yeah, one more thing ... your commercial fleet customers will demand you use it — or they will go to your competition, who is.

Peggy can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]. Her previous columns are available at www.tirebusiness.com