Predicting when tyres will wear out

Carter’s Pull-Point Technology collates critical tyre data, including tyre tread measuring carried out at its depots nationwide

Story Dave McLeod & Wayne Munro

KIWI TYRE SPECIALIST HAS DEVELOPED A TYRE LIFE

management/monitoring system it believes is a world-first – able to accurately predict when a tyre will wear out. Carter’s Tyre Service says that data from its “groundbreaking” Pull-Point Technology (PPT) has shown that many (if not most) of its clients were replacing tyres way before they needed to….

In fact, up to 30% early….and sometimes, when the tyre was only half-worn!

The system it has developed, which it believes is the world’s first predictive PPT software, thus “not only guarantees cost savings, but also keeps fleets safer.”

Carter’s says that PPT uses rich data sets to provide accurate realtime information on every tyre in a fleet. It collates comprehensive information including truck configuration, transport application, tyre positioning, geographic terrain, the brand and pattern of the tyre…plus tyre tread details.

The latter is, it says, the result of manually measuring tread,

A Carter’s mobile tyre technician at work

using the latest Bluetooth technology at depots nationwide, with all measurements taken at the point of greatest wear on a tyre.

Using all this data and combining it with active GPS data from the kilometres travelled by fleets operating nationwide, Carter’s PPT is able to forecast in realtime when a tyre should be pulled from use (its pull point).

It offers accurate information in realtime and up to three months in advance on how many days – and how much tread a tyre has remaining – before it will reach the all-important pull point. Fleet managers using the Carter’s system are able to access this information remotely, wherever a truck is.

Carter’s Tyres CEO Matt Carter explains that “the law says that if tread depth at any point on a tyre dips below 1.5mm, it’s illegal.”

But using its PPT data, Carter’s has been able to show Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency that customers were having tyres ruled illegal when, in fact, they still had legal tread depth.

And, just as importantly, that these tyres were being properly managed and monitored by its pull-point technology.

The presentation to NZTA came after Carter’s repeatedly challenged instances of tyres being ruled illegal because, says Matt Carter, “the law’s the law, you know – and we were taking that 1.5mills as gospel.”

But, in discussion with NZTA over “the challenges that we were putting in front of them, they enlightened me by saying that it’s not actually the 1.5mm – it’s (a matter of) ‘what if no-one changes that tyre at 2mm or 3mm…and it becomes the cause of death or injury.’

“And I completely understand that, because that’s probably the biggest part of the reason why we have developed PPT – as we’ve grown and expanded and become a national business.”

PPT addresses the concerns by proving that tyres are being properly monitored and managed – so won’t become a safety issue on the roads.

Carter says that NZTA was “impressed” with the level of tyre management Carter’s PPT software provides to its customers – in particular the ability “to know 24/7, via live data, when a commercial tyre will reach its pull-point (3mm).”

Carter’s is now acting on a suggestion by the Agency, he says, that it create a sticker to identify its customers using PPT – thus providing visual confirmation to officials that a commercial vehicle’s tyres are being managed 24/7 by the company.

The QR code on the sticker will be unique to each vehicle and when scanned will access a web landing page with the vehicle’s tyre pull-point details.

“That sticker is going to go a long way because the CoF or Commercial Vehicle Safety Team (CVST) won’t have that input. That sticker proves that there is someone looking at that tyre before it gets to the point where we need to come and change it.”

Matt Carter believes the technology is world-leading

“We didn’t really know how big the problem was....”

Carter explains how the predictive PPT system evolved – starting nine years ago with the launch of tablet and Cloud-based software “originally designed as a live invoicing type of system.

“But over the years our software developers have added bits and pieces to it, so we’ve got a whole service module.

“With all that historical data, we found that we could start predicting when a tyre will wear out through details such as specific geographical wear rates, the configuration of the truck, the position and type of tyre...”

Although the customer cost savings were obvious, the development also created “an internal dilemma” for the company. The system would dramatically reduce customers’ spend on new tyres and, as Carter says, given the loss of up to 30% in turnover overnight, “how were we going to survive that?”

It would call for an internal restructure – not possible in the short-term, given for instance, the fact that its fleet of trucks are leased.

Adding to the potential risk it posed to Carter’s own business was the fact that the consideration of the full benefits and implications of its PPT occurred during last year’s COVID-19 lockdown period – “when everyone’s future was unstable,” Carter adds.

“We didn’t know what was going to happen, but said: ‘Even if it’s going to get messy, let’s give it a go.’ We thought ‘if anyone needs a hand, they need a hand now. Let’s do it.’ ”

Another concern, says Carter, was that customers might think that they’d been ripping them off: “We didn’t really know how big the problem was, but once we started getting into it, there’s a whole sort of flow-down effect (which was working to see operators setting an ever-higher pull point).”

Carter explains: “If an owner sends a truck for a CoF and it fails, or if a truck gets pulled up on a weighbridge and the owner’s told to change their tyres, that customer is not happy – he doesn’t want to be dealing with that.

“So, as soon as that happens, the customer adds a millimetre (to the pull point). Then the workshop adds a millimetre and, by the time we get it, the tyre’s pull point may be up to 6mm.”

He says that Carter’s has had instances where customers have told them they want a tyre with 7mm of tread depth changed because they “don’t want to go to the CoF station and fail.”

The PPT data collected and analysed takes into account truck configuration, applications, tyre positioning on vehicles, geographic terrain, the brand and tyre pattern of the tyre…plus tyre tread details

Carter says that PPT can manage that to guarantee better tread utilisation.

But, he adds, changing habits and culture “has been a big job” – with the likes of NZTA, the CVST, mechanics doing CoF and preCoF checks and, within customer companies, workshop staff.

“So we’ve had to go and educate them. It’s been a massive battle and we still haven’t finished yet.”

The bottom line, says Carter, is that if a tyre is failed at say 4mm during an official check and it doesn’t have the transparency that PPT provides… “well, that’s an illegal tyre.”

“It could be on that weighbridge and the CVST has taken it off the road because it’s at 3 or 4mm and they don’t know if anyone’s got that scheduled to be changed. But the tyre provider might have it scheduled to be changed that night.

“But the minute that gets taken off the road and needs to get those tyres done, the transport operator has put a big black spot beside the tyre provider….because that’s an illegal tyre, in their eyes.”

Carter says that PPT hasn’t just resulted in savings from extended tyre life, it’s also changing the way fleet managers look at all their trucks’ tyres.

“I think that it’s in just the difference of going from hand and eyes in managing a fleet to then using software that totally replaces it, changes the mindset, It’s such a new concept.”

And, despite the potential to slash Carter’s Tyre Services’ turnover, PPT is proving to be “good for business, in terms of the new business that we took on. But in the worst-case scenario if we hadn’t taken any new business on and we took all of that out of our customers’ spend, without an internal restructure to match the loss in turnover, we couldn’t have survived.

“It is proving to be a business success – but it takes education…and we’re still going through that process. So it’s not an easy win, you know.”

Even after presenting its PPT technology to NZTA, it has continued to improve the system, Carter says: While “they were happy with the monitoring process, internally we weren’t that comfortable with just rolling with what we had.”

In order “to guarantee that there wasn’t an illegal tyre out there (in Carter’s monitored system) we’ve gone to what is like a telephone account manager – so someone who’s behind that screen monitoring an account all the time – to make sure that if a tyre does get into that danger zone, we can jump on it straight away.”

Once that was put in place, the company was comfortable with setting the pull point to “get as close to 1.5mm as you can.”

There is, he adds, “still work to be done” and Carter’s is looking

to expand its data gathering network of central tyre inflation and GPS providers, to further enhance the accuracy of its realtime data.

But Matt Carter is confident that the PPT software “will go a long way to ensure that the headache of tyre tread management is one less thing for fleet managers and drivers to worry about.

“Tyre wear is indicative of many things in operation, amongst them such things as driver behaviour and road conditions.

“But the data we now have on hand takes the conversation much further than that: It highlights common traits by wheel and axle position – allowing informed conversation with the design engineer to enhance both the new builds and existing fleet.” T&D