MINING TYRES
predictions for the new truck based on the performance of the other trucks in that fleet. If it’ s a brand new site with a particular truck that is being used elsewhere, it will forecast using data from other trucks of the same type operating on other sites in the same environment, which of course will be approximative, but will get better.”
Kal Tire has seen a 38 % reduction over 12 months at one site in the amount of tyre work, by that it means in the amount of downtime for tyre work as a result of planning more effectively with the tool.“ What the tool is doing is primarily to say, we need to change the position. Secondly, it’ s aggregating that work together, so if I have a particular truck and the forecast is saying there’ s three jobs to do, it’ ll aggregate them together. And then thirdly, it’ s looking to time the work to make sure that we’ re maintaining sufficient inventory as we don’ t want to run out of tyres.”
At the mentioned site, Kal Tire has seen the amount of jobs done, ie numbers of tyre changes per event, increase, essentially an extra tyre done each time.“ Sounds very simple, but that’ s where the real value is. Instead of doing, maybe the two tyres on the front at the same time, the system is saying, hang on, there’ s an old tyre that needs changing or there’ s tyre damage we can deal with at the same time.”
And as a model develops, Kal Tire is also starting now to integrate customer maintenance plans, where they are willing to share them, which offers the opportunity to improve the work aggregation side even more.
Goode continues:“ We’ re currently focused on short term planning with customers as step one. We have a model that we think is very good at forecasting work for the next six weeks. We are telling the sites how many new and how many spare tyres we think we’ re going to need each week. So we’ ve got a forward-looking plan for that six week period. The next goal is how do we extend that to 12 months and have a monthly forecast. Because there are undoubtedly benefits we can look at in terms of supply chain and stockholding for customers and the budgeting piece too.”
Kal Tire also thinks that AI will help users as there’ s a lot of seasonality of usage in mining tyres, for example in Canada where there are weather change extremes between winter and summer. And in the tropics too, you have rainy seasons, which are very hard on tyres. So, if we can use AI to help budget trends more efficiently over time, that might be an interesting benefit down the line.”
Bridgestone and Smart On-site
IM Editorial Director Paul Moore also recently had the chance to get a deep dive
42 into Bridgestone’ s Smart On-site- a new program that brings together the strengths of its world-leading mining tyre products, technology, data and people in a close partnership with its mining customers. Grok Gates, Director, Business Development at Bridgestone Americas told IM:“ We use these together to address their pain points, goals and objectives from various standpoints including productivity, sustainability and safety. We take the time to listen and document and measure – within Bridgestone we use our plan-do-checkact( PDCA) philosophy to make iterative improvements, and we do the same with customers. We measure so we can hold ourselves accountable and deliver on the improvements we have promised.”
Gates emphasised that it is not just a marketing hypothesis.“ Ultimately it will result in an initial customer agreement and a field trial to be able to show real results and
IM met with Grok Gates, Director, Business Development at Bridgestone Americas to review Bridgestone Smart On-site
verify those results.” Then the subsequent depth of partnership in a full implementation will depend on the customer and the desired level of commitment from their procurement team.“ At the highest level we are even willing to look at benefit sharing, where we are rewarded on the basis of their increased productivity as a form of performance guarantee.”
So how does it work? At its heart is a digital operational program – tying all of Bridgestone’ s solutions together.“ We look to amplify both the products and the trust with the customer which from their side means giving us access to their sites and resources as well as to their operational people who are actually going to address the issues. We want to help the customer move more with less – and actually that may mean us selling less tyres if we are helping them get more out of them. We also believe that prevention of issues is the best solution – at the end of the day getting more out of the tyres is more sustainable too.”
Underpinning Smart On-site is the Bridgestone technology suite, including iTrack, its leading real-time mining tyre temperature and pressure assessment solution. It also has a full suite of accelerometer and telemetry data collection and analysis to make sure we have full insight into how both the tyres and the truck are performing. iTrack is also fully integrated with Bridgestone’ s tyre management systems, so it is correlating the TPMS data for each individual tyre.“ Our leading MasterCore tyre line is also a major part of Smart On-site – these tyres can be optimised for a number of performance attributes – potentially as much as up to 5 % more durability, 10 % faster speeds or 15 % increased load capacity.”
This is achieved using a range of improvements including new bonding agents between the steel cord for improved coverage & adhesion; anti-rust steel cord and new rubber compounds to improve crack propagation, resulting in improved belt & casing life. Their increased load capacity means they can also hold more payload, or allow for reduced inflation for better traction. Finally, it includes Bridgestone Toolbox, a next-generation digital tyre assessment and asset tracking platform. When combined with the operation running with the right air pressures, the right payloads, optimal speeds and on well maintained haul roads, the result can be very powerful. Gates adds:“ The program includes Bridgestone Engineering Solutions doing site visits to make heat and payload studies and make haul road studies – everything is documented. They can also conduct in- and out-of-service inspections, GPS assessments, G-force studies and drone surveys. These are followed up with customer meetings and presentations – and it is these regular engagements backed up by real data that leads to improvements over time. This comprehensive approach both enables operators to work optimally and leverage real-time and historical data insights to continuously improve.” Other aspects that can potentially be added to a customer agreement include tyre recycling options in certain global locations as well as tyre repairs.
It is a program but it is definitely not one size fits all.“ We work very closely with each individual customer on their particular needs. Every mining operation is different and there are a variety of ways in which it can be delivered – in some regions the customer may be using a tyre management service provider, in which case Bridgestone would also work closely with that company
International Mining | JULY 2025