What you need to know about fleet tire analysis

Conducting tire analysis in your fleet provides a great deal of important information that should be used to guide tire purchases and better understand the cost of each model in operation.

It is also a fundamental part of fleet management for identifying whether each employee's responsibilities are being fulfilled and what can be changed to improve results.

To learn more about the benefits and why this analysis is necessary, read on:

What tire analysis is;
Why carry out tire analysis;
Who carries out tire analysis;
How to carry out tire analysis.

What is tire analysis?

Tire analysis focuses on understanding each of these fleet assets, individually or in specific categories, seeking to identify, for example, the reason for tire disposal, the emergence of an issue, the main causes of early losses, etc.

This investigation gathers a tire's registration information and combines it with asset usage data. Tire size, function, make and model are thus analyzed, contributing to the assessment of its quality, performance and CPK, as well as other relevant information.

Tire pressure measurements over the weeks are also analyzed, as is tread depth. Both are data that help explain the level of rubber wear and likely causes when irregularities or accelerated wear occur.

Why carry out tire analysis?

The main goal of carrying out fleet tire analysis is to identify the models that generate lower costs and a greater return on investment in the operation. In other words, the tires that offer the best value for the company.

This makes the activity important for generating benefits such as:

Cost reduction

When a company understands which tires offer better value, it can make more strategic purchasing decisions and compare makes and models based on cost per kilometer, which shows how much it costs to travel a certain distance with each tire in the operation.

By making more strategic purchases to avoid waste, it is possible to reduce fleet operating costs. This result, however, depends on factors such as vehicle weight, tire pressure, tire size, maintenance and service history.

Greater asset durability

When you carry out tire analysis and understand why tires are suffering impacts and damage, you can take appropriate measures to avoid these consequences. This gives tires both better performance and a longer useful life.

Your analysis can also identify the reasons for retreading rejection. You can then arrange appropriate actions and take better care of casing preservation to seek more lives for tires in your operation, always respecting safe retreading limits.

Reduction of early losses

By assessing tires and understanding their main issues, you generate valuable insights for your management. For example, why is the rate of tires rejected for retreading so high?

In summary, this can happen when the casing is already fatigued and retreading is unlikely to deliver the expected result for that tire's condition.

Finding the reason for casing fatigue in your fleet and reducing early losses is only possible through a thorough analysis of your routine and tire use.

Who carries out tire analysis?

Depending on the size of the fleet and company, different professionals may be responsible for this tire management stage:

Fleet manager

Most often, the fleet manager organizes the entire routine and tire management processes for the fleet, as well as taking on other areas. In this case, the manager would also be responsible for this activity.

However, this professional becomes responsible only for purchasing decisions and budget approvals if the fleet has a tire manager. This is done through analysis of the tire reports submitted by the tire manager.

Tire manager

The tire manager should take care of everything related to the operation's tires, from purchasing and inventory registration to keeping track of the tire repair shop's routine.

When solely responsible for this area, the tire manager should prepare reports and carry out tire analysis, bringing observations to the fleet manager so they can make informed decisions suited to the operation's circumstances.

Tire analyst

If a tire analyst is part of your team, this person will be responsible for carrying out the necessary analyses.

If tires are being lost, the analyst should seek information to understand why and develop hypotheses based on fleet data.

If tires are unfit for retreading, the analyst should assess the reasons. At the same time, this role is responsible for assessing the quality of services performed on tires, identifying average durability after a service and keeping track of changes in tire CPK.

Despite being very important for tire management, this person is not a decision-maker and should forward all observations to the tire manager and/or fleet manager.

How do you carry out tire analysis?

To carry out a complete analysis and have what you need to assess tire performance, your fleet routine must already include the habit and tools needed to collect data on these assets, mainly tire registration records and records of pressure and tread depth.

This information is crucial to understanding tire performance over time.

Likewise, service and retreading information is needed for an overview of asset performance after some type of maintenance.

If you already have the information, your analysis should then follow three fundamental steps:

1 – Define the analysis goal

The best way to carry out an analysis is to understand why you are doing it. Your fleet tire management plan should already define some objectives and goals for this area, and these can be the starting point for your analyses.

For example, if the goal is to “reduce early tire losses by 3%,” you should examine aspects such as:

Number of tires lost;
Reasons for tire losses;
Main reason behind early tire losses;
Which tire make had the most losses.

2 – Select the analysis period

For greater precision and detail in your analyses, you need a defined period for analysis and comparisons.

Monthly intervals are a common alternative, as they usually gather enough information without delaying the correction of possible issues too long.

3 – Analyze: develop hypotheses, theories and solutions

With all the information available, you can investigate and identify areas for improvement in tire management.

For example, if analysis shows that the main reason for early disposal is casing fatigue, some solutions include:

Change the minimum tire tread depth limit (if it is 2 mm, raise it to 2.6 or 3 mm);
Perform tire calibration more frequently;
Investigate vehicle maintenance issues.

Based on these findings, you can understand what makes the most sense for your fleet's circumstances and apply what is most appropriate. At the end of a new period after implementing the actions, carry out a new analysis and check the effect, deciding whether to continue the actions or adopt new improvement alternatives.

Want to make your fleet's tire analysis easier and faster? In a free demonstration, discover Prolog App's Tire Management solution, which features comprehensive dashboards and automated reports.

Frequently asked questions

My tires are being discarded early. Where do I start investigating?

Start by defining what you want to find out and look at the data in order: how many tires were lost, for what reason, which reason predominated and which make had the most losses. If casing fatigue appears among the causes, three possible corrections are raising the minimum tread depth limit (from 2 mm to 2.6 or 3 mm), inflating tires more frequently and investigating vehicle maintenance faults.

What fleet data do I need to analyze tires?

The analysis depends on three sets of information already recorded in the routine: each tire's registration (size, function, make and model), pressure and tread depth records over the weeks, and service and retreading history. Without these records, you cannot know how each tire has been performing over the months or calculate each model's cost per kilometer.

Who should be responsible for tire analysis in my operation?

It depends on the size of the fleet and company. In many operations, the fleet manager organizes the tire management routine and processes. When there is a tire manager, this person takes care of everything related to the asset — purchasing, registration and keeping track of work in the tire repair shop — and brings observations for decision-making. The tire analyst carries out analyses and investigates causes, but does not make decisions: the analyst forwards the conclusions to the manager.

How often is it worth analyzing fleet tires?

You need to set a defined period to make comparisons. Monthly intervals are a common alternative because they usually gather enough information without delaying correction of an ongoing issue too long. After implementing the chosen actions, the recommendation is to repeat the analysis in the next period and check the effect, deciding whether to maintain the actions or test alternatives.

How does tire analysis change fleet costs?

The main goal of tire analysis is to identify the best-value models and compare cost per kilometer across makes and models. With this information, purchasing tends to become more strategic and the fleet can better investigate early losses and retreading rejections, taking care of casing preservation and each tire's use.

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