Central Tyres goes mobile
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• by Sharon Glancy Central Tyres, the Pirelli-owned tyre distributor, has closed Its 130 truck tyre branches and replaced them wth Truckweb, a network of 220 mobile technicians and 150 unmanned stock depots.
From now on, even for routine tyre changes, staff from Central Tyres will visit the operator, rather than the operator taking the vehicle to a tyre depot. Central predicts the new system will give operators more convenient routine servicing, a faster breakdown recovery service and stricter adherence to tyre fitment policies.
"Fewer operators, more concentration of vehicles in large fleets and an overall reduction in the vehicle parc means there is less opportunity for branches to sell to local customers," says Truckwob's national operations manager, Mike Henderson. "There is also increased demand from fleets for centralised services."
Analysis by Central revealed that 87% of truck tyres sold to fleets were fitted at the roadside or on the customer's own premises—and concluded that a branch network was a waste of resources. "You get spots of poor geographical coverage, branches close together reluctant to share staff or stock, and too many manual input processes on tyre management," Henderson says.
Truckweb's central control is Finked with the technicians via live satellite tracking and mobile communications. This allows the vehicle closest to the operator and the available stock to be allocated to the job, and up-todate information regarding an operator's tyre policy and vehicle history to be downloaded to the technician's vehicle.
Central technicians are paid not just to fit new tyres but also, when they regroove, to turn round tyres on the rim and check pressures.
Henderson says Truckweb should speed up Central's breakdown response time: "There will be no need to search around for stock—the control centre will locate the stock before allocating the job to a technician."
Southampton-based Communications specialist Tardis has helped Central Tyres develop the in-cab equipment and officebased communications systems.
Each van has a mobile control data unit (MCU), a Tardis message port to receive and send messages and an A4 printer to give copies of reports and work schedules to fleet engineers or transport managers.
The rugged Mals were developed for tyre management. They are used to upload data on tyre pressures and tread depth, for example, and by the driver to send text messages to base.
Central is using the RAM Mobitex mobile data network, which covers 95% of the major road network in the UK and is said to be especially robust when it comes to data security.
The Tardis Homebase office software is the Truckweb control centre. Notice Board displays the status, position, direction and speed of the MCUs monitored; real-time location of the vans is handled by Microsoft's AutoRoute mapping system.
A separate Message Manager screen displays an analysis of the text communications between MCUs and base.