Tire Tracking System Introduction

 

 

When you start the application the following screen will appear

 

 

 

 

Note the 19 tabs on the left, they let you access the different modules:

 

  1. Init: the initialization pane showed at startup
  2. Param: system wide parameters (language, currency, units of measure, initialization options, …)
  3. Manufacturers: to add, update, delete manufacturers
  4. Models: to add, update, delete the tire models of  manufacturers defined in the previous screen
  5. Dimension: to add, update, delete tire dimensions
  6. Reasons: to add, update, delete reasons why tires were removed from a vehicule or why they were retread
  7. Trains: to add, update, delete trains. A trains is a combination of axles and tires. It defined a motorized vehicle or a trailer
  8. Enterprises: to add, update, delete a company to which vehicles and optionaly tires will belong
  9. Vehicles: to add, update, delete a vehicle having a certain train and assigned to an enterprise
  10. Vehi Histo: to add, update, delete a vehicle history record which contains distance data (miles or kilometres)
  11. Tires: to add, update, delete tires
  12. Retreads: to add, update, delete threads on a tire
  13. Tire Histo: to add, update, delete wear data on a tread
  14. Rotation: to perform tires rotation on a vehicle
  15. Tires-Vehicles: to install or remove a tire from a vehicle
  16. Statistics: quick statistics about what the wear should be today on all tires according to history records and which rotations are due
  17. Reports: differents reports about the cost by wear, days, miles or kilometres
  18. Graphs: graphics related to the reports
  19. Server: when used as a server, statistics about the clients

 

02) Parameters screen:

 

 

 

This screen allows you to define:

 

The “Color” tab is used to change the background color if you do not like the default light blue color.

 

The “License” tab is used to manage the license if you have a purchase a license for advanced features.

 

The “Dump” tab is used for support reasons if we need to investigate a bug at your site.

 

03) Manufacturers screen:

04) Models screen:

05) Dimensions screen:

06) Reasons screen:

 

These screens have all three (3) tabs on the top used to add, update, delete an entry.

All screens have a “remark” field into which to can write what you want.

Usually you can access a field (manufacturer, vehicle, tire, …) by selecting it with a drop down menu on the left panel or by cliquing on the field on the right panel.

The right of the screen shows all entries already entered.

When an entry is referenced its color is in blue.

Let us see some examples:

 

Adding a manufacturer:

 

 

 

Note that the list of manufacturers already entered appears on the right of the screen. Manufacturers that are referenced by a tire model are in blue and the number of models that referenced the manufacturer is also displayed.

 

Just fill the fields and click the “Add” button.

 

Updating a model:

 

 

Note that the right panel has now three (3) tabs showing the already enterered models by alphabetical order “Model-Manu”, by manufacturers and the models “Manufac-Mod” or just the manufacturers “Manufac”.

 

To select a model to update you can:

-        on the left panel select the manufacturer on the drop-down list and then select the model on the second drop-down list

-        on the right panel click with the mouse on the model you want to edit

 

Updating a model allows you to:

-        change its manufacturer (if you have enterered the wrong manufacturer when you created the model)

-        change its name

-        change its color (to rapidly identify a model in all reports tires names are preceeded by a little square having the model color. Look in the right panel the Bridgestone T4100 is preceeded by a little red square)

-        change the type (driving, tractor, trailer)

-        change the initial wear

-        change the minimum allowed wear this is used to calculate the cost by 32th or mm

-        starting at which minimum wear the name of the tire will appear in red in the report and when an alert will be fired for this tire

 

You can also change the remark which contains by default the name of the manufacturer and then click the “Update” button.

 

Deleting a dimension

 

 

To delete a dimension you select the dimension in the drop-down list of the left panel or you click on it on the right panel.

Note that in the right panel the dimensions used are in blue the ones that are not referenced in black.

You cannot delete a dimension that is referenced by a tire. (As you cannot delete a manufacturer which has models). If you try to do so a warning message will be displayed. The drop-down list displays only the dimension that are deletable (in our case “295/75R22.5”)

 

Updating reasons:

 

 

Multiple reasons for which a tire is removed from a vehicle or for which a tire is re-tread are offered. You can add your own.

Later on a report shows statistics about these reasons for every tire model. That lets you know that a certain model of a certain manufacturer is more encline to flat that another model.

 

07) Trains screen

 

Train is a very important concept.

A train is a combination of axles and tires. There are motorized and trailer trains.

A motorized train can have the following types of axles:

- driving

- tractor

- air

- tag

A trailer train can have the following types of axles:

- trailer

- air

You can define as many train as you want.  You then associate multiple vehicles to a train.

There is a report that presents statictics on how wear appears on different trains. You can also define “equivalent” trains.

For example a Canadian company can define a train “Trailer 8 wheels Quebec-Ontario” and a train “Trailer 8 wheels USA-Mexico” and compare how the wear appears on the different vehicles of these two trains. If the vocation of a vehicle is changed it always possible to change its train as long as the new train is “equivalent” (same axles and same tires defined) to the previous one.

 

To add a train you click with the mouse on the tire used and you select the type of the axle on the drop-down list.

 

How to define a Prevost bus:

 

 

 

As you can see we have a driving axle, a tractor axle and a tag axle which were selected by the drop-down list a the right of the axle.

 

Another important item to consider is the “Rotation/Names” tab. This tab allows you to define when rotations are due.

Rotations can be defined according to the value of the odometre, the hubometre or the number of month. The values registerered in this rotation tab are used to fire alerts when rotations are late.

 

Another field is the “tire name” field.  Il all reports tires positions are displayed as axle number/tire number like : 07/01 but most trucking companies have their own naming convention. This field allows you to defined how the tire position will be displayed in the reports.

 

Naming axle 6 tire 1: “T1”

 

 

08) Enterprises screen

 

Most companies will only have to define one company itself.  Other providers manage the fleet of more than one company in this case more than one company must be defined.

Vehicles always belong to one company. Tires can be reserved for a company or be available to all.  This depends on how the provider manages its tires.

The enterprises screen allows you to add, update, delete a company with different data on this company (contact name, phone number, …)

 

09) Vehicles screen

 

To add a vehicle we have to specify:

- the cie to which it belongs

- its train (a little diagram of the train appears on the right left corner of the screen).

If the vehicle s motorized if measurements are taken from:

- the odometre

- the hubometre

- both.

The measurement units (can be kilometres for the odometre and miles for the hubometre).

Statistics are also available in days for both motorized vehicles and trailers.

 

Adding a vehicle:

 

 

When you update a vehicle you can only change its train for an “equivalent” train.

You cannot delete a vehicle who has or had tires assigned. We will first have to delete these tires.

 

 

10) VehicleHisto screen

 

On this screen you can add, update, delete an history records which contains the distance appearing for the odometre and the hubometre.

If the vehicle has one or more air axle a drop-down list allows you to select and air axle and a slider lets you specify the percentage of utilisation of the air axle for the period.

 

You can select the vehicle from the drop-down list on the left panel or selecting the company and then by clicking on the vehicle on the right panel tab “company”.

 

Update vehicle history record:

 

 

You can not have to history records for the same date.

On the right panel the date of the history records are in blue if a tire was removed from the vehicle.

You can change the wear of an history record but not its date if a tire was removed at that date.

 

The Vehi Histo panel has also 2 other tabs. The “Tires History” tab and the “Garage Report” tab.

 

The Tires History tab is used to enter wear for the different tires of a vehicules. These enties will be dated the date of the history record.

 

The Tires History pane

 

 

Select the tire with the drop-down list on the left panel or click on the tire with the mouse on the diagram of the vehicule on the left.

The history records of this tire will appear on the bottom of the left panel.

 

The “garage report” pane is used to display the vehicle and its tires with their last measurements.

This report can be printed so mechanics in the garage can enter the new wear measurements.

 

Garage report screen:

 

 

11) The Tires screen

 

Finally the tires by themselves.

 

Tires can be added, updated, deleted.

You cannot delete a tire that is installed on a vehicle.

You have to enter the name of the tire, its cost, the company it belongs to or “not reserved”, its model and the initial wear if the model’s initial wear is not used (will be the case for a used tire).

 

Add tire screen:

 

 

If you want to change the cost of a tire cost use the Retreads screen.

You should use the Update tab to declare a tire scrap and optionnally select a reason.

 

12) Retreads screen

 

This screen is used to add a tread to a tire. You can update the thread cost (including the body cost).

You canot delete a tread that has been used on a vehicle. Deleting a tread is only permitted to remove a tread that has been added by mistake.

 

Adding a tread:

 

 

You cannot add a tread to a driving tire.

A “†” precedes the name of the tires that have been declared scrap.

By default the initial wear is the one of the model but a slider let you change this value.

 

13) Tire Histo screen

 

This screen is used to add, update, delete an history record for a tire.

You can also perform the add operation from the “Tires History” tab of the Vehicle Histo screen.

Select the tire from the drop-down list on the left panel or by clicking on the tire on the right panel.

 

Add tire histo:

 

 

The right panel shows all the already wear records for this tire.

 

14) Rotation screen

 

Use this screen to rotate tires.

Fisrt you select the vehicle and then click with the mouse on the tires you want to rotate.

The selected tires colors change to yellow.

 

 

The history records of the selected tire appear on the left bottom of the screen.

 

15) Tires-Vehicles

 

This screen is used to add or remove tires from/to vehicle.

Select first the vehicle and available tires will appears on the drop-down list.

Tires are always added or removed at the date of the last history record of the vehicle.

Pass with the mouse over the tire of a vehicle, the history record of this tire will appear.

Click on a tire on the vehicle diagram, a pop up menu will ask you to confirm that you want to remove the tire for the reason specified.

Click on an empty tire on the vehicle diagram, a pop up menu will ask you to corfirm that you want to install the selected tire.

 

Add/Remove tires from a vehicle

 

 

16) Statistics screen

 

This screen has 3 panes.

The first one shows counters on how many tires, vehicles, re-tread, trains, manufacturers, models,… are registered in the database.

The second one shows what should be the wear on all tires according to the vehicles history records and the tire history records.

The third one show which rotations are late according to which criteria.

 

Wear statistics

 

 

For every tire we have:

-        its model

-        the vehicle where it is installed

-        the position on the vehicle

-        the dates of the first and last wear history records from which calculations were done

-        the initial and last wear

-        the average wear by day

-        the expected wear for the days from the last history record to today

-        and so what the wear should be

 

Note the wear with foreground in red are wears under the minimum specified for the model

 

Rotations overdue

 

This panel shows the rotations overdue and based on which criteria.  It can be odometre, hubometre or days.

Different shades colors from yellow to red show the relative importance of the criteria used to determine overdue.

 

 

On the left side appear in yellow which criterias are used to decide that an overdue was detected.

 

17) Reports

 

Five reports are presently available:

1.     detailed by tire

2.     by model

3.     the reasons

4.     by train

5.     by vehicle

 

The tire report displays statistics about a particular tire cost by mile/kilometre for the odometre, the hubometre and always by day.

Cost for each unit of wear…

 

Tire Report

 

 

This tire has a body and 1 tread. The train and the position on the train are showed.

The % util is for the air axle.  In this case this is a driving tire for a tractor so its %util is always 100%.

A list of the history records is provided.

The reports can be sent to Excel but this requires a paid license.

 

The model report offers less details statistics but the values are grouped for a certain model.

 

Model report:

 

 

The reason report display the reason why tires where declared scrap or removed from a vehicle.

 

Reason report

 

 

The train report compare the behavior of a certain model of tire on a particular train.

 

Train report.

 

 

Finally the vehicle report is used for companies who need to know on a daily basis how much available wear they have on the road and how much wear was used from date to date.

 

Vehicle report:

 

 

Note the wear in red which denotes that according to company policy this tire has excessive wear.

 

18) Graphics screen.

 

The graphics screen displays in full screen the small graphics displayed in upper right corner of the report screen.

 

19) Server screen.

 

This screen displays clients informations for customers buying a client/server license.