D&L Haulage cut tyre costs with TyreWatch

TPMS smart solution proves its worth in helping to prevent tyre damage before it happens

POOLE-based walking-floor specialists D&L Haulage (Dorset) Ltd have always paid for their tyre services on an as-and-when basis, but not anymore, says the company. These days they are saving time and money thanks to the TyreWatch tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) and tyre service provider Universal Tyres.

‘Tyres are one of the biggest costs we have,’ said D&L accounts manager Julia Manley. ‘Dealing with waste and loose material every day, it’s inevitable that our vehicles pick up debris. As well as downtime, a puncture or, worse, a blowout, can mean damage to the vehicle itself or that of another motorist. This is why we decided to go with TyreWatch – to try and prevent damage before it happens.’

Wayne Willavoys, account manager at Universal Tyres, said: ‘Darren Wrann, managing director of D&L, came to me because he felt the fleet had reached a size where he needed to address his tyre spend. I put together a PPK tyre contract for him and started looking at initiatives to reduce his downtime.’

After first planning to upgrade the quality of tyres used by the company, Mr Willavoys suggested TPMS from TyreWatch as a proactive solution. ‘Darren liked the idea, so we ran a trial on two of his trailers, this being where he was getting most of his punctures. The system proved its worth in the first week when we were able to catch five events on just one of the trailers.’

TyreWatch is smart connected technology which monitors every tyre in a fleet, looking at changes in pressure and temperature. When it sees an issue developing alerts are sent via email to both the operator and the 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 is a problem, whereas TyreWatch will pick it up immediately.

‘In the case of those first five events, by liaising with D&L’s transport office when the alerts came through, we were able to get a van deployed to meet up with the driver immediately, massively reducing his downtime,’ said Mr Willavoys. ‘This meant that instead of the driver waiting for a standard 90-minute call-out, the job was done and dusted in 25–30 minutes on all occasions.

‘With TyreWatch we can also do a predictive analysis based on the curve of a tyre deflating,’ Mr Willavoys continued. ‘If it's deflating slowly or has a self-sealing puncture – something which often happens around 80–90psi – and the vehicle is empty, we can get it back to D&L’s yard. That way the driver can pick up a spare trailer and get away, leaving us to go in and deal with the puncture.’

Achieving proof of concept for TyreWatch via a live trial usually takes three months, but in D&L’s case it was done in less than two weeks. Mr Wrann could clearly see the benefits and decided to roll it out across the whole fleet.

‘TyreWatch should help us from a direct costing point of view by reducing our tyre bills, plus there are the indirect costs and savings as well,’ confirmed Ms Manley. ‘After all, any downtime means we're not earning money.’

Glenn Sherwood, director of TyreWatch, said: ‘I’m delighted that D&L Haulage and Universal Tyres, in partnership with TyreWatch, appreciate the real-time benefits of the TyreWatch platform. It has enabled them very quickly to appreciate the added value this brings to their tyre-management solutions.’