Tires cost money -- lots of it. So tires should be monitored and maintained for optimum usage. Computer software has made the possible for virtually any size fleet. But just how far should that monitoring go?

Should tires be tracked in groups, like many inventory items? Should tire experience and wear be sampled from representative tires and extrapolated for fleet-wide conclusions? Or should every tire be individually identified when it first enters the fleet and tracked in detail over its entire life?
For many fleets, the answer is somewhere in the middle. The questions is, at what point do the benefits outweigh the cost?
In the September issue of Heavy Duty Trucking, Technology Editor John Bendel examines this issue in "IT Solutions." He makes the case for both schools of thought: detailed (tire management,) and the less detailed (tire maintenance) approach.
Tire maintenance advocates use software to track tires by sampling or in groups -- by size and brand name, for example. Users can track the cost of tires per vehicle, per mile.
Tire management proponents say that's not enough. Detailed histories of individual tires present a picture of what tires would be best matched up with each other on a free-rolling axle or a drive axle, in what condition, under what power plant, etc.
For more on tire tracking software, see the September issue of HDT. To find out if you qualify for a free subscription, visit www.heavydutytrucking.com.