News You Can Use

RTA NEWS YOU CAN USE
JULY 21, 2014

RTA RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING EMAIL FROM RICHARD KOONTZ OF SQUARERIGGER SOFTWARE AND WE WANT TO SHARE IT WITH YOU BECAUSE
WE BELIEVE IT CONTAINS AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Harvey, I share your enthusiasm for tires... but from a different vantage point. Our focus is on tracking tires.

On pinpointing the causes of abnormal tire wear and correcting the problem before it destroys the tire. On automating the inspection process. On streamlining what to look for, how to find it. On making it cost-effective to care. On making it simple so a manager can press a button instead of asking the team to work over the weekend to generate one report.

Retreads have come a long, long way. Cheaper to run than new. Reliable. But subject to normal human behavior, and they get a bum rap as a result. The standard complaint is this: watching/tracking the tires takes too much labor time. It is too uncomfortable on a breezy winter day in Northern Ohio to kneel on the ice to get at that inside tire. It is too uncomfortable on a hot humid morning in Houston to spend five minutes on the sunny side of the truck.

In the shop, the obvious alligators running through the bays grab all the attention. Tires that carry the alarm traces of "this axle is out of alignment, this tire is wearing out its partner..." are just not as important as the clear problems. Get the transmission looked at. Get the A/C fixed or the brakes adjusted. Get it in, get it out. "We don't have time to do everything we are supposed to do." I recall a three-man shop servicing 175 trucks that had just received another corporate edict: "Every truck WILL be inspected prior to its going out on the road every morning by 6 am." Sure thing, boss. Good luck with that.

Tires that are not obviously bad get ignored. And in the end, when the driver has to decide to inpsect the tires or fire it up and get on the road, he or she will hear the dispatcher talking, (use any external source of authority here) and will conclude "They don't pay me to walk around the truck for ten minutes enjoying the sunshine. They pay me to deliver the load."

We brought out Revolution Tire Management (www.RevolutionTMS.com) to provide the latest and greatest in tire tracking software, and it is used religiously by fleets around the world. People love the package --- and it pinpoints tire problems beautifully. But in the end, it gets down to love of the tire.

If you don't love the tire, you won't make sure your tire policies are followed. You won't hire that kid to go through the yard checking tires. As a driver, you won't get down on your knees and get up close and personal with them. You will climb up into the cab and drive off, oblivious to the inside tires running at 65 psi while you haul loads of heavy pipe through the mountains.

True story, that --- when that rig and its load ended up spreading itself across the hillside below the mountain curve it sounded like a jet plane roaring through the canyons. All because it was too uncomfortable and too unimportant to check the tire pressure that cold morning in the Rockies.

Keep up the good work, Harvey.

Richard

RICHARD KOONTZ CAN BE REACHED BY EMAIL AT rkoontz@squarerigger.com OR BY TELEPHONE AT 360-204-6966. THE SQUARERIGGER SOFTWARE WEB SITE IS www.squarerigger.com.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

"Innovation and persistence in the delivery of facts
arond the use of retreads and the savings realised,
must remain a constant."

- From an article in Southern Africa Treads magazine