COMING NEAR: TRACKING TIRES FOR LIFE
It appears that the possibility of passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags in bus and coach tires may become reality in the near future. This technology will allow tire manufacturers to electronically establish each tire’s record for inventory, service life and warranty purposes. As an added bonus, the tags should have extra memory storage to accommodate in-life programming after the tire is put into service.
Most end-users agree that RFID tags are a good thing, but they also come to the conclusion that the perceived benefits still do not outweigh any cost so the price of the RFID tag cannot be added to the price of the tire.
This “include it at no extra cost” attitude has made it tough on the companies that manufacture truck tires. There are basically three ways that a tire manufacturer can attach an RFID tag to a tire: build it into a patch and install it on the innerliner or outer sidewall; glue it directly to the innerliner; or cure it into the tire during the manufacturing process. The first two approaches are extremely labour-intensive so the added costs make them an unlikely long-term solution. Building the tag into the tire seems like the most obvious choice.
Despite the cost considerations, it appears that tire companies have finally reached the point where some of them have perfected the process and justified the costs from an internal standpoint. It takes a lot of resources to track every tire for inventory purposes and an equal amount of money to process the warranty claims – which work can be done cheaper by using RFID tags. We are at the beginning of the digital age of traffic and transportation, tires are the next component to take that route.
