As part of our recent interview at the IAA for Transportation exhibition in Hannover with Philipp Ostbomk, Michelin’s Vice President Sales for the Europe North region, we were able to talk in depth about the trend towards digitalisation in the tyre market, and about Connected Fleet, the umbrella brand for Michelin’s fleet management services and solutions offering.
Connected Fleet Enjoys Launch in Germany
According to Ostbomk, Michelin has seen two kinds of reaction to the launch of Connected Fleet. The first reaction is the clear credibility of Michelin when it comes to the issue of connecting tyres and various measurement systems such as TPMS and tread depth measuring systems. “With our strong footprint in tyre management, they see that this is the digital age of tyre management with more digital tools being connected,” he explained.
The second reaction, he said, is that “fleets are often getting data, but it is not being used properly because they don’t know how or don’t have the time. Our approach is to get the data and to help the customer understand it and act on it. We transform the data into smart reports, so the data is interpreted. We help the customers understand what is going on, and then, during monthly meetings with each customer, we define actions based on the interpretation of the data. We don’t tell customers what to do, but we help them to understand and to define the right actions to improve.
“We have two basic features,” he continued. “One is the fact that all of the Michelin truck tyres we use today have an RFID chip in them. This allows you to identify, digitally process, measure etc. and connect the tyre identification with anything you want – mounting data, tyre pressure, position on the vehicles etc, which is still done by hand today. The second thing we show is called QuickScan, which is a drive over solution measuring the tread depth digitally. Together with the tyre RFID identification, you have the tread depth on the identified tyres.
“We try to connect everything related to tyres,” he continued. “Michelin Connected Fleet, in a way, operates independently to tyres as the fleet management part our business It can connect everything that can be connected and this can be with or without tyres. The idea to be very customer centric, and we customise based on the customer needs. So, if a customer asks about connecting forklifts, cranes, or passenger cars, we will find a solution to connect them, and then if the customer asks whether we can connect tyres, we will investigate it and do it.
“We want to improve driver satisfaction and for the driver to be comfortable in the world, and with Michelin Connected Fleet, the reports and incentive programmes based on driving behaviour certainly help. We encourage fleets to incentivise drivers to work on driver retention, which is based on what the customer wants. We try to put it together to build a package that really suits the customer.”
