What’s the role of people with Kal Tire’s autonomous tire inspections?
It takes mere minutes for TireSight autonomous tire inspections to make and analyze observations that the naked eye just can’t. From tread cuts to sealed separations, TireSight’s thermal imaging software, powered by Pitcrew AI, captures and flags critical tire conditions of passing trucks, and sets off a chain of automated events that ensures repairs and replacements are addressed not just when needed, but also when it’s best for fleet use. Autonomous inspections reduce technician exposure to trucks and improves tire performance and truck productivity, but humans still play an important role.
“One of the common questions we’re asked when we’re talking about TireSight is, ‘Do you still need people to be a part of inspections?’” says Christian Erdelyi manager, mining technology solutions, Kal Tire’s Mining Tire Group. “The answer is, yes, we absolutely still have people involved in the process, but we’re able to make much better use of their expertise and time while improving the quality and frequency of inspections to catch issues early.”
As mines increasingly automate, how does TireSight seamlessly layer technology and teams of experts so trucks run as safely and productively as possible, and so tires get their best performance?
The TireSight process begins as haul trucks pass an autonomous tire inspection station, often set up near a fuel bullet or on haul roads. Without trucks even needing to stop, Pitcrew AI thermal imaging cameras can capture three to five full rotations of both front and rear tires, often it inspects the same truck several times a day. Manual inspections, on the other hand, take between 10 and 30 minutes of downtime and inspectors can only view about half of an earthmover tire due to its sheer size, usually about once a week.
Next, Pitcrew AI’s thermal imaging software analyzes those images for anomalies such as hot spots on tires and tread damage or sealed separations. Along with other sources, such as TPMS (tire pressure monitoring systems), that data streams into TOMS, Kal Tire’s proprietary Tire & Operations Management System, which can be viewed by any member of the fleet planning team.
“TOMS acts as a very intuitive, responsive hub for data and decision making,” says Erdelyi.
If a tire anomaly is detected, it’s TireSight that alerts condition monitoring teams. They’ve been brought on board to provide 24/7 validation of TireSight anomalies.
“TireSight was carefully designed to only alert teams of the issues that really need their attention, and with the addition of our condition monitoring experts, we have an added layer of assurance as we move into the flow of steps that will require both automated maintenance planning and more involvement from technicians and fleet planning teams,” says Erdelyi.
Now, with a condition monitoring team member confirming signs of tire damage, for example, TOMS automates work orders to plan and schedule repairs or replacements. That scheduling is based on two unique factors: 1) agreed-upon parameters set with the customer according to priorities of either uptime or tire life, and 2) with an eye to aggregating tire work for a time when trucks are already down for service.
Long before TireSight inspection stations are even installed, Kal Tire reliability analysts work with customers to determine those goals and parameters for both reparable and non-reparable findings.
“That’s a new role we paired with the insights of related to TireSight, and we’ve discovered it brings the customer a lot of value because we’re able to use years of TOMS data to show what the true cost of downtime is, and customers can determine what’s more important: reducing downtime or extending tire life—so in those moments when TireSight picks up a critical finding, how we react is consistent and in line with the customer’s unique goals. No time is wasted.”
TireSight, in use for three years in Canada, Chile and Colombia, is providing insightful data about the progression of tire damage, for example, that is helping our teams to determine when tire service work might be required in future.
Now that on-site service teams have a scheduled follow-up inspection or planned repair, technicians’ time and expertise can focus on tires with priority issues, instead of every tire in their fleet simply to keep up with inspection compliance. Autonomous inspections save their time and reduce exposure to trucks.
While only sharing necessary alerts, TireSight is as responsive as possible: inspection frequency is increased, response to findings is improved, and by identifying issues early, there’s more proactive maintenance and, therefore, more tire life and uptime. But Erdelyi says it’s also very much the teams of experts along the way that make all the difference.
“TireSight has been so successful in reducing inspection downtime because of this very smart collaboration between systems providing data and people leveraging data, and it just propels more safe production.”
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