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LSM’s TMS saves tyres, fuel and lives

Industrial road tyres can be potentially dangerous to work around due to their large size and magnitude of air or gas pressures. LSM Technologies explains how its heavy-duty tyre monitoring system (TMSystem) helps to mitigate the hazards of working with pneumatic tyres on any type of vehicle.

TMSystem is quickly becoming a mandatory safety control for all on and off-road vehicles, as authorities and industry standards demand for the risk of vehicle accidents to be mitigated.

Due to the many severe incidents caused by tyres, occupational health and safety (OH&S) regulators are beginning to recommend or even mandate the use of TMSystem.

LSM’s heavy duty TMSystem allows any company operating heavy vehicles to enhance the safety of their people and equipment using technology to monitor tyre pressure and temperature.

This not only protects workers from potential injuries from these enormous tyres but also reduces maintenance time to re-pressurise tyres, cuts costs for operators, avoids vehicle roll-overs and crashes and allows their machinery to keep rolling safely for longer.

LSM Technologies was the first provider of such technology to the Australian tyre industry, according to chief executive officer Peter Woodford.

“Over the years there have been numerous tyre-related incidents, some of which sadly resulted in fatalities,” Woodford tells Safe to Work.

“Tyre-related accidents and fatalities involving vehicles utilised in such industries as mining have highlighted the importance of continuous, virtual monitoring of tyre pressures and temperatures with TMSystem to aid in mitigating potential tyre-related vehicular accidents and incidents.

“TMSystem is quickly becoming a mandatory industry safety control measure for all vehicles using pneumatic tyres, as authorities and industry standards call for such technology.”

The company has been a proud lobbyist of tyre safety, having influenced many Australian OH&S authorities to adopt TMSystem to protect vehicle operators and occupants.

LSM Technologies is a member of the Australian Road Transport Suppliers Association tyre management working committee, and was invited to attend the National Heavy Regulator’s heavy vehicles fire roundtable conference.

With its influential position, LSM has completed field evaluations to prove the benefits of its TMSystem, for example, when it was selected by Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) for approximately 3500 buses.

This was to mitigate bus fire-related issues such as tyre and wheel wells, locked brakes, tyre pressurisation and wheel bearing failures.

LSM provides TMSystem to a range of other working equipment, including cranes, elevated working platforms, scissor lifts, dangerous goods and chemical and fuel transportation.

The two major components that make up LSM’s TMSystem are the in-cabin monitor and the tyre sensor. The in-cabin monitor allows the operator to set up the TMSystem and provides live monitoring of the tyre sensor data, as well as pressure and temperature alerts.

The tyre sensor is a radio frequency sensor that communicates temperature and pressure data to the in-cabin monitor.

LSM’s TMSystem can monitor up to 180 tyre sensors and provides the operator with visual and audible alerts for drops in pressure by 19.3 kilopascals in less than 12 seconds, if the pressure in any tyres drops by 12.5 per cent, if it increases more than 25 per cent or if the temperature exceeds 80 degrees Celsius.

For more accurate monitoring of tyre pressure, LSM’s TMSystem can be partnered with its Fleet Safety Manager (FSM) web-based portal that integrates into the TMSystem, as well as other OH&S technologies.

As well as a fleet asset tracking system, FSM provides integration to OH&S safety mitigation controls, 24/7 monitoring of the system data, data collection for reporting, analysis and compliance, immediate alerts via email and SMS and full user administration and alert set ups and reports.

In addition to safety, LSM’s TMSystem and FSM system support major cost decreases by targeting the re-pressurisation of tyres.

“Some larger fleet customers have up to 3000 tyre sensors reporting into their FSM and this saves them massive dollars as the FSM report provides them with targeting data of the tyres that require attention,” Woodford explains.

“Alternatively, if they had to check every tyre for air pressure once a week it would take two workers more than 150 hours to complete this task, which is virtually impossible, let alone cost prohibitive.”

Other advantages of using LSM’s vehicle safety division and TMSystem are peace of mind, vehicle protection, increased fuel economy, extended tyre service life, decreased maintenance, reduced roadside downtime, enhanced stability, braking and handling, reduced casing damage and increased vehicle performance.

“There is a dramatic difference in TMSystem technology designed for domestic vehicles versus industrial applications,” Woodford says.

“Robustness, fit for purpose and heavy-duty requirements are needed to ensure reliability and longevity of TMSystem in the industry.”

This feature also appears in the January-February edition of Safe to Work.

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