Page 12 - CTB N11 - 2015-03

COMPANY NEWS
Michelin Solutions: Tyre Management and Beyond
Paul Davey, Michelin Solutions’ Commercial Director for the UK and the Republic of Ireland
Michelin Solutions was established in May 2013 with a view to presenting fleets with a broader concept than a simple focus on tyre management. The aim was to offer practical, reliable, long-term solutions to improve the efficiency of their day-to-day operations and their profit margins. In the two years since the launch, Michelin Solutions has been introduced across Europe, and there are now some 300,000 vehicles on contract across the continent, including in Eastern Europe. Included in this are some 63,000 vehicles that are on Effitires contracts in the UK. The company now plans to introduce the concept on a worldwide basis, with North America, South America and China being on the company’s mid-term target list. We took the opportunity to talk to Paul Davey, Michelin Solutions’ Commercial Director for the UK and the Republic of Ireland recently, to find out what new developments we can expect from the company over the course of the next year. Michelin Solutions currently offers three different programmes for fleets. The first of these, Effitires, is a PPK solution focusing on the management of tyre expenditure only, Effifuel is a fleet
management solution that focuses on fuel saving, whilst the latest solution, Effitires with Fuel Commitment, is a tyre management package that offers a fuel saving commitment alongside it.
Paul Davey explains the focus on fuel saving; “Our aim at Michelin Solutions is to look at parts of the market where we can make a difference to the costs in fleets. The UK is a mature market and fuel saving has been on the agenda for many years. We are looking to evolve our concepts in ways that are attractive to fleets.”
Effitires with Fuel Commitment, launched during the CV Show, is ver y new, and in recent months the company has been in the process of making the first quotations on the new offer. “The new package is aimed at the larger end of the operator spectrum,” said Davey. “Typically 100 tractor units and above would be targets, but this, of course, depends on the segment and the mileage. We have received considerable direct interest in Effitires with Fuel Commitment, and we are expecting good news shortly with regards to the take up of the new package.”
That said, Davey is fully aware of the growing interest from other tyre manufacturers in
providing tyre and fuel management packages similar to those offered by his company. “We are aware that there are new offers on the market,” he said. “We would like to see Effitires with Fuel Commitment grow, but we are also aware that it’s a long-term business and things don’t happen overnight. We have medium- long term ambitions, and we would like to think that we have offers that are interesting to major operators.”
Davey adds that the Effitires offer has proven particularly popular with major
bus operators, and the company says it has been involved in in- depth contractual negotiations with both First Bus and Stagecoach, winning 65% and 100% of their business respectively.
According to Davey, Michelin Solutions’ contract with Stagecoach offers a good example of how the company works closely with major fleets to help them meet specific objectives.
Stagecoach has had a tyre supply contract with Michelin for around 20 years and it is the single biggest bus contract in the UK. It differentiates from most other contracts because it is truly national, involving a large number of sites, both urban and rural, which offer different challenges. Each of the sites has a dedicated Michelin Solutions fleet operator who works on site as part of the Stagecoach team, carrying out regular monthly checks on the whole fleet, looking at tyre conditions and tread depth. “Compliance and safety is paramount in our relationship with the client,” says Davey. “To achieve the result we aim to achieve for our clients, it is important that regrooving is done – retreading too. We maintain a transparency in the way we operate, which we need
to do to assure we deliver what we say we’re going to deliver. Stagecoach has more than 8,000 vehicles, so there can be 50,000 running wheels on this one contract alone that rely on our in-house team of fleet operators keeping them compliant. Stagecoach is looking to maintain consistency across the whole of the countr y and looks to Michelin Solutions to meet their specific needs, in order to improve what they’ve already done in specific areas.”
Whilst Michelin solutions’ uses its own fleet operators to service the major bus contracts, for truck-based fleets it works closely with service partners including ATS Euromaster and the Michelin Truck Professional network of independent dealers. This ensures it can offer the best possible support to vehicles which tend to operate on varying routes, and which unlike buses, don’t return to the same depot on a daily basis. Davey believes that the market for programmes like Effitires and Effitires with Fuel Commitment will continue to grow. “We are ambitious for growth and our aim is to target both new and existing customers,” he said.
In part this will be achieved by the continuing evolution of existing programmes such as Effifuel, which, following good progress in Europe, is being continually evolved to fit the more mature UK market. However, it will also include the introduction of new products. An example of this is Effitrailer, a trailer optimisation and utilisation tool, which is scheduled for launch later this year.
“Effitrailer addresses of the key issues facing fleets today, how to manage their trailer fleet optimally. The UK is a pilot countr y for this and we can expect to see the programme operational by the end of the year. Ever yday our central development team is working on the evolution of existing offers, and to develop new offerings, although we are conscious of the need to avoid having too many new offers at one time.
“In developing these
12 Commercial Tyre Business