Page 30 - Commercial Vehicle Engineer - June 2021

PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE
Taking the pressure off
Predictive maintenance is also helping to address a perennial problem for commercial vehicles – tyres blowing out or deflating. There are now providers selling technology that can spot faults before they happen, such as TyreWatch.
TyreWatch is smart connected technology that monitors all tyres, looking at changes in pressure and temperature. When it sees an issue developing alerts are sent via email to the operator and tyre service provider, so action can be taken in the most efficient manner. In the case of a blowout on a trailer the driver himself may not even be aware there's a problem, whereas TyreWatch will pick it up immediately.
Glenn Sherwood, CEO of TyreWatch, says that the technology can eliminate 95% of all blow outs caused by underinflated tyres. “By delivering real time proactive pressure and temperature alerts operators now have for the first time the ability to plan in tyre repairs and replacements while the vehicle is in motion,” he says.
“One of our customers has recently saved a £7,000 dump truck tyre from destruction by using our system. The tyre had deflated over the weekend due to a damaged valve and although the tyre looked visibly unchanged, it was running at half of its normal pressure. Our system picked this up, alerting first thing Monday morning. The customer and their service provider were alerted simultaneously allowing for the machine
Commercial vehicles working
in quarries are at risk of tyre blow- outs, but predictive technology can help reduce the risk
to be stopped and a repair was carried out that morning. If TyreWatch had not have been fitted this would have led to a premature failure of the tyre.”
Systems like TyreWatch can also save operators money is on vehicle servicing. “We deliver regular time saving reports that signpost which tyres on the vehicle to inflate and which to leave alone.”
This can also lead to environmental savings. “By maintaining an optimum tyre pressure and using the data that is delivered from our platform operators are able to make operational changes to maximise their vehicles tyres lifespan,” Sherwood says. “This in turn will reduce carbon emissions and keep PM10 and PM2.5 tyre particulate emissions to a minimum.”
The technology behind the system, which fits onto any type of commercial vehicle, has been developed over the past seven years in conjunction with technical and industrial partners, including three leading universities and key fleet customers. TyreWatch is a cloud-based product combined with GSM and satellite connectivity.
“The tyre pressure and temperature algorithm can accept not only data from our own tyre pressure sensors, but it can also condition sensor data from OEM and other makes of sensor types as well,” adds Sherwood. “All this
is achieved using API feeds into the TyreWatch cloud-based system.”
Industry standard
Predictive maintenance is now well on the way to becoming an industry standard, adds Sherwood. “The efficiencies delivered by artificial intelligence have now become must haves for operators as they look to remain compliant in the future,” he says.
Freeway’s Tandy agrees, adding that while there is often a reluctance to adopt new technology and move away from tried and tested methods of decision-making, progress depends very much on leadership and attitudes. “There is, however, an irreversible shift to digitisation and artificial intelligence is being incorporated into software, although it might simply be presented as ‘another feature'," he says.
“As with air travel and passengers not being able to see the pilot and understand how safety systems work, we come to trust in the technology. The same applies to intelligent software in the workshop and early objections soon disappear once the benefits begin to be realised.”
30 JUNE 2021 > COMMERCIAL VEHICLE ENGINEER