Following the news that Goodyear has retained the UK police fleet tyre contract, Tyres & Accessories contacted Crown Commercial Services in order to confirm which other tyre firms have succeeded in winning their part of the two government tyre supply contracts which together are worth an estimated £200 million.
Multi-brand commercial fleet specialist Tructyre is part of the global Michelin group and Euromaster family. As is the case for many companies, Tructyre has found the past 12 months challenging, and it has focused on managing the impacts of the pandemic and helping to keep customers moving throughout the crisis.
It is often said that this is the busiest week of the year for the nation’s firefighters. While 5 November 2020 looks likely to be an outlier in this regard thanks to the new national restrictions to counter rising Covid-19 infections, there’s no more appropriate time of year to follow up our previous looks at the tyre demands of police forces with a similar analysis of the fire service. T&A made Freedom of Information requests to the largest, by number of full-time firefighters, UK fire services earlier in 2020, asking for such data as: tyres bought and replaced, the fleet size and vehicle parc, minimum tread depth at change, and whether tyres were regrooved and/or retreaded. The latter is probably the easiest question to answer, as eight fire services told T&A that they do not retread their tyres versus zero who do.
It’s two years since Michelin began merging the Tructyre commercial vehicle tyre and service business it acquired in 2017 with its ATS Euromaster heavy tyre operation. Tructyre reports it is now in the process of removing the ATS logo from its service vans and other branded items in order to create a more unique brand identity. In future, the ATS moniker will only be used in the UK by the Michelin-owned car and van tyre and service specialist, ATS Euromaster.
Following the news that Tructyre ATS is centralising its administration and call handling functions at specialist centre in Gateshead, further details have emerged. Top of the list is that the national specialist in truck tyre maintenance and fleet support is creating 80 new jobs at the Customer Experience Centre in Gateshead.
Last October, Tructyre ATS announced plans to create a new nationwide tyre management specialist with the merger of Tructyre and ATS Euromaster’s heavy tyre operation. The company says that after “eight months of hard work” it has completed this transition.
ATS Euromaster has renewed its ISO 9001 certification for the 27th consecutive year. The renewal means the national tyre and vehicle maintenance provider has consistently met the highest award for quality management since 1992.
When Michelin acquired truck tyre supplier and service provider Tructyre almost a year ago, it gained one of the UK’s most successful independent commercial vehicle tyre management groups. It now intends to evolve this asset into Britain’s largest national heavy tyre business by merging Tructyre with the heavy tyre operation currently belonging to ATS Euromaster.
Commercial tyre management specialist Tructyre Fleet Management, has adopted an advanced telematics solution from Ctrack, an Inseego company, which will be used to help monitor and improve driver behaviour and fleet productivity. Tructyre will use the web-based vehicle tracking system across a fleet of more than 150 vans and HGVs to achieve greater visibility across the company’s UK operation. It will also be used alongside integrated driver communication, fleet management and reporting tools. This should increase staff engagement, gain operational control and realise added performance insight, the company states.
Tructyre chief executive officer Glenn Sherwood has announced the launch of Tyrewatch, a predictive tyre management system the company states can “prevent 95 per cent of tyre related breakdowns”, from The Satellite Applications Catapult in Harlow, near Oxford, an organisation which has assisted the project in implementing satellite communications connectivity. The new system for fleets, three-plus years in development for its initial phase, combines tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) with increased and continuous cellular and satellite connectivity and artificial intelligence to provide automated analysis of fleets’ tyres. The system works by connecting sensors continuously monitoring tyre pressure, temperature, vehicle speed and GPS location to TyreWatch’s servers, which in turn alerts drivers, fleet managers, and tyre servicing providers where action should be taken. All of this results in a trio of potential benefits: economic, safety, and a step towards autonomy for logistics vehicles.
In last year’s ranking of the top tyre retailers in the UK, Tyres & Accessories predicted that the pace of change in the top 20 chains by branch count would result in some jostling for position. This has proved entirely accurate, as two major acquisitions have brought two of 2017’s top 20 into the fold of higher ranked companies, leading to both Micheldever/Protyre, leapfrogging HiQ into fourth place as predicted last year, and Lodge Tyre, into the top 10 from joint-14th last year, making significant jumps in this year’s table. Most other retailers have held relatively stable positions in terms of the number of stores, while our most recent additions to the table, Eden Tyres (15 stores) and Elite Garages (13) were identified as narrowly missing out on places last year.
Hot on the heels of its recent acquisition, Tructyre has gone live with e-jobsheet to manage its direct fleet and third-party work amongst its tyre technician community.
In January, Bridgestone became the first organisation to trial the new tyre accreditation scheme, irtec Tyre, by testing technicians on their practical and theoretical skills. Now Tructyre and leading coach firms have announced that they have adopted the standard too.
Tructyre, the well-known Tyre fleet management specialist, has become the latest organisation to trial irtec Tyre, with four technicians at the Ashford depot accredited in recent months, and John Brand, group operations manager, believes the scheme will thrive due to the impartiality of its assessments.
Michelin has bought well-known truck tyre supplier and service provider Tructyre. Michelin representatives confirmed that the deal had taken place on 22 October, but no details of when it was signed or how much money is involved have yet been released. Tructyre currently runs 26 service centres across the UK, but mostly situated in the South East of England.
After 10 years of collaboration, Tructyre has acknowledged Bandvulc’s position as a “strategic partner” in its business.
In 2014 Tructyre embarked on an aggressive three-year business plan following on from their acquisition of P K Commercial Tyres in 2012. According to Tructyre, when the plan was instigated it was key that their strategic partners were on board. With 10 years of partnership behind them, Tructyre reports that “the relationship has flourished even further in the last three years with proactive initiatives in distribution, product (launch of Tructyre’s Re-Trak range), tyre management and service.”
Ahisgett; Flickr; CC-BY-2.0
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