The benefits of investing in a TPMS compared to manual pressure checks

Do you currently undertake manual pressure checks on your company’s Industrial or Off-the-Road (OTR) vehicles? If that is the case, it may be worth considering investing in a fully automatic Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS). The benefits of investing in a TPMS compared to manual pressure checks come from the fact that these instruments measure the pressure and temperature of tires and continuously feed the information back to the driver or the fleet manager in real time. This allows management to decide on the safety and efficiency of vehicles’ tires. It also enables managers to plan for servicing and repair.

There are several compelling reasons why it is worth upgrading from a manual checking system to a full TPMS for your industrial vehicles:

1. Safety

TPMS provides continuous monitoring of tire pressure and temperature, alerting operators to potential issues that could compromise safety. It helps prevent tire blowouts, accidents, and equipment damage caused by under or over-inflated tires or by tires overheating. Manual pressure checks mean tires are only checked periodically. Consequently no monitoring is done whilst vehicles are in use. During usage is when problems are much more likely to occur.

2. Temperature effects

Everyone agrees that maintaining proper tire pressure prolongs tire life, reduces tire wear and improves fuel efficiency. The tires must be cold to perform manual checks. All the major OTR tire manufacturers recommend cold tire inspections. This means that, without a TPMS system, there is no measurement of the tire pressures at their normal working temperatures, which will be considerably higher.

3. Downtime Prevention

Unplanned downtime due to tire-related issues can be expensive and disruptive. An issue found during one of the manual checks, is only a single snapshot so there is no further information about the severity of the problem. With an automatic TPMS, it is possible to see how the problem develops and if the incident is a major or minor issue. This allows for timely repairs or replacements based on the severity of the problem and minimizes unexpected equipment downtime.

4. Operational Efficiency

An automatic TPMS enables better fleet management and operational efficiency by providing data-driven insights. Because the system collects and logs pressure and temperature data every 5 minutes. It allows operators to monitor tire health, track performance trends and plan maintenance schedules more effectively. Having this information leads to optimised operations and improved productivity. A TPMS that logs data consistently and provides full reporting capabilities is a minimum requirement.

5. Operator Confidence and Comfort

TPMS promotes operator confidence by providing timely warnings and notifications about tire issues. Manual checks are always intermittent and less likely to be fed back to the operator. As a result, when using a TPMS, operators feel more secure and focused on their tasks, leading to increased productivity and job satisfaction. A proven track record of TPMS reliability is essential to promote operator confidence.

6. Time saving

With an automatic monitoring system, you can do away with the regular manual checks of all the tires pressures on all the vehicles. A TPMS eliminates this time-consuming job, freeing up staff to undertake more important tasks without interruptions. Another advantage is that an automatic system never misses checks. Additionally it also captures issues that occur between manual checks.

7. Data collection and data visibility

With periodic manual pressure checks, despite operators being diligent and well trained, it is easy to miss checks due to other time constraints and to record data incorrectly or inconsistently. The benefits of investing in a TPMS compared to manual pressure checks are that the data is automatically collected and stored for later analysis, and it’s stored every 5 minutes. This process creates a much more credible dataset, giving a better picture of how the tires are performing. The TPMS can summarize and visualize this data to give clear insightful reports on tire issues, which would be impossible with manually collected data.

8. Helps with tire choice

Tires from different manufactures will perform differently on different vehicles and in different situations. So it’s important to be able to gather sufficient information to check how these different makes of tires are performing and allow management to make more informed and cost saving buying decision. This collected data would be essential in providing evidence relating to warranty claims with tire manufacturers. It could be used for training drivers about tire issues and reviewing working practices to avoid stressing tires. The data could also be used to analyse the reasons why tires are operating outside normal limits and to quantify sustainability improvements. All these examples would be impossible using manual pressure-only checks.

The benefits of investing in a TPMS

Overall, the benefits of investing in a TPMS compared to manual pressure checks for industrial vehicles bring many advantages. These advantages include: safety improvements, cost reductions, downtime prevention, compliance adherence and operational efficiency. In summary, buying a TPMS is an essential investment for any industrial operation using OTR vehicles. The payback period will be very short and the benefits last for many years.

Do ensure that your chosen TPMS provider can demonstrate a proven track record of operations in harsh environments, such as high and low temperatures and high levels of vibration. Also ensure that the data logging is comprehensive, accurate and reliable, allowing operators and managers to plan ahead to schedule tire maintenance and replacements. The smart choice is to look for an independent TPMS supplier who can provide TPMS for tires from any manufacturer, for tires of any size and for any vehicle. This will ensure the maximum cost savings. Note that some TPMS providers only offer systems for a limited number of tire manufacturers and/or sizes. This can be a limitation if you use a variety of tires by different manufacturers in your business.

Don’t miss out on the immense benefits a well-chosen TPMS can provide your company.

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