Of all the improvements brought about by RFID technology, tracking a vehicle’s route – from where it stops to how long it takes to reach a destination and return – is one of its benefits. Companies, from delivery services to freight businesses, can get a more nuanced view of their workers’ performance and can see where certain areas within its pipeline need to be more streamlined.
Likely as a result, Michelin recently announced a similar upgrade to its entire global fleet. Based on a press release, the company placed RFID tags inside nearly all of its truck tires, with the purpose of providing better tire life data to its commercial customers. This improvement should further give Michelin’s customers more thorough and accurate data to control their tire costs and ongoing issues related to downtime, lower mileage, higher fuel costs, and safety risks.
In several cases, as the release points out, these issues can turn into what’s called a “red tag” or “yellow tag” event, with the former requiring immediate attention to avoid the wait time and costs involved in emergency roadside service or to prevent receiving a CSA violation. Better data, then, would assist customers in managing and preventing these “pain points” in the future.
“This [RFID] platform allows fleets to better track their tire assets and better understand the lifecycle of their tire casings,” said Ralph Dimenna, COO of the Michelin Americas Truck Tires division, at the recent 2017 Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) annual conference.
Currently, 98 percent of Michelin tires have tags that can be scanned with any RFID reader. This action, further, represents a progression of the company’s Michelin Tire Care Service, which they introduced roughly two years ago. To date, the program has addressed improving hardware and software, installing an Actionable Fleet dashboard with more tire data, more detailed vehicle history, a tire maintenance program, in-house inspections, and Tire Care inspections at certain truck stops.
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