Tire Maintenance for Supply Chain Management Critical in CSA Era
Posted on Thu, Sep 01, 2011 @ 11:28 AM
The Compliance Safety Accountability program is placing much greater stress to have tires that are well maintained. The CSA is making tires instrumental to the new safety specifications that are to be upheld with the new program. At the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas on Friday, experts said truckers should make sure their tires are properly mounted, are able to suit the hauls they carry and are fuel-efficient. The statements came from a tire technology seminar that took place during the Trucking Show. Tires “are one of the top three expense items owners have,” said Clif Armstrong, Continental Tire commercial vehicle Marketing Director.
There are a few key points the experts touched upon during the seminar. Armstrong and others noted. “With CSA, you have to know what the air reading is in your tire.” They continued on to talk about compounds, tread design, sidewall and bead design; all topics that have to do with increasing fuel economy. Don Baldwin, Michelin’s commercial tire product category manager, noted that sidewall and bead area design is critical for reducing rolling resistance. Erica Graves Walsh, Bridgestone’s engineering manager for original truck and bus tires, also joined Baldwin and Armstrong, among others, at the Trucking Show to talk about proper tire safety for the Supply Chain Industy. Bridgestone has recently created its own website dedicated to tire safety cleverly named tiresafety.com.
For more information on the CSA, check out our blog Driver Education and the CSA.