Michelin has new tools and data available to fleets to help them better manage their retreading programs.
And some of those tools were demonstrated at Michelin’s Innovation in Motion road show, which visited Tirecraft’s Canadian Treads in Ingersoll, Ont., June 17.
It begins with consistency. Emily Ledbetter, retread brand manager with Michelin, said the tire maker is beginning to use artificial intelligence to collect and analyze tire data, then provide it to the fleets to help them make tire management decisions. AI will also soon be used during the tire inspection process prior to retreading, to help an operator identify any issues with the tire that are invisible to the human eye.
“It means that every tire that comes through the retread plant is getting the exact same attention at those inspection posts,” she explained. “We’re not dependent on an operator who maybe didn’t sleep well or has one last tire standing between them and the weekend. Every tire going through the process gets the exact same level of attention.”
Jason Salvaggio, innovation leader with Michelin North America, helped develop the Fleet Business Insights platform. Michelin Retread Technologies is rolling out a process called Tread Eye during the initial inspection process, which scans the 32nds of tread on the casing before it’s advanced for buffing.
“In the past we didn’t have a consistent way of measuring tire tread like we will now with this new technology,” Salvaggio said of the technology that’s soon to be deployed at Canadian Treads and other plants. “So, what was being buffed off? Or, what was still usable on that 32nds?”
Capturing this data alerts fleets to when they’re running too much tread off their tires before sending them for a retread, or when they’re retreading them prematurely. It also pinpoints variations in tread depth; for instance, maybe part of the tire has 6/32nds of tread while another section has 11/32nds, indicating irregular wear.
Fleets will be able to reduce their casing rejection rate by optimizing their pull points using data available through Fleet Business Insights. The platform also identifies avoidable tire damage, such as flats caused by improper inflation pressures. Fleets will also be able to drill down into their tire data by location to ensure their tire management programs are consistent across the network.
“As a fleet, you could look to see what locations are pulling tires early or late,” Salvaggio noted.
The tool will allow fleets to track their casings through a section called Asset Tracking and Visibility, which gives fleets visibility into their tires, whether they are during the retread process.
Fleet Business Insights also will offer fleets visibility into their emergency roadside service calls and purchasing history.
Canadian Treads retread plant
Canadian Treads, owned by Tirecraft, retreads about 1,000 tires a week. It’s a Michelin Retread Technologies-certified plant, meaning it follows Michelin’s rigorous retreading process. It will cap any brand of casing that’s suitable to be retreaded, but only with Michelin rubber.
Unlike most MRT plants, Canadian Treads offers both pre-mold and custom mold retreads. It is one of only two MRT retread plants in Canada offering the custom mold option. While the performance of the retreads are identical, Kelsey Oliver, Michelin’s director of sales for retreading, noted some customers prefer the cleaner look of the custom mold retreads, since there’s no visible seam where the tread is attached.
“Some drivers and some fleets don’t like to see that splice,” he told trucknews.com.
A special monobeam machine is used at the Canadian Treads plant for custom mold retreads, giving it the appearance of a brand-new tire. But all retreads produced at the plant are in like-new condition by the time they go through MRT’s nine-step retreading process.
The final step involves inspecting the tire for any imperfections, painting the sidewalls and stamping it with the date of retread as required by the DoT.
Michelin claims its reject rate is well below the industry average and of course, every casing retreaded is spared from a landfill site. Some sanitation fleets, Oliver said, can get up to eight retreads on a casing.
“The idea with retreading is that we can get multiple lives out of a tire,” he said. “We can save the fleet, or the end user, a significant amount of money and keep waste out of the landfill.”
