Making sure that you select the right tires for your machines depending on the work becomes increasingly more important. The attachments are getting bigger and heavier and the tires are getting more specialized, so it is more difficult to make sure that your selection is optimal for the work at hand. Smaller companies might have an easier task than bigger companies, which often have this in the hands of the procurement department. It can often happen that the procurement departments get too detached and work towards the wrong KPIs, only looking at the sourcing costs and not the companies overall costs related to the items. 

For purchased tires, it is not enough to only looking at the cost to purchase a tire, all the costs have to be assessed. Mounting costs, service costs, unscheduled service costs and related costs, downtime costs and replacement costs. Some have to be estimated, like higher fuel costs between tires and higher wear resulting in earlier replacement. 

Preventive service should always be done to minimize any unscheduled service or downtime. The frequency should be set such as you minimize downtime. The cost of failure needs to be assessed. A failure of a logger tire, might be more costly as it might be stranded deep in the forest, so the cost of repairing it there or getting the skidder back to the landing in a similar way that a mining tire deep in a mine, will be more costly than for tractor tires on a farm, where it can more easily be accessed and there are less space constraints.

When you look at forestry tires for example, you will need to make sure that you get the right tire for the correct equipment in the right size and for the correct load. If they are not as effective as another tire, you might have delays, not being able to work in all conditions and more downtime, so all this needs to be factored into the decision and also the KPIs that the procurement department should be measured on. The preventive service costs and how often it is needed should also be factored in.

Weather might also impact or local regulations, so that some equipment might have to handle snow and might require commercial winter tires to drive safely. So make sure that the procurement of tires is not isolated function and that it cooperates with all the functions in the company to ensure that the overall cost of the tire, cost of running, cost of service and replacement is all taken into account when there is a purchase order for new tires, the purchase price will tell you very little of the overall running costs of heavy equipment where an accident, a problem or a lengthy downtime affecting numerous other equipment can be very costly and can also cause very costly delays and penalties to a project. 

For more information regarding tire selection for heavy equipment, visit: www.nokianheavytyres.fr

Paul Petersen