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MALAYSIA
Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group Focuses on ‘Safety=Savings’
Malaysian retreader and fleet management company Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group (KLCT), made its presence felt at the Malaysia Commercial Vehicle Expo (MCVE) recently. It attended with an impressive booth design and its integrated campaign themed ‘Safety=Savings’ for commercial fleet operators.
According to the Global Status Report on Road Safety published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in December 2018, Malaysia has the 3rd highest fatality rate from road traffic accidents in Asia and ASEAN behind Thailand. However, the Malaysian Road Safety Plan 2014-2020 has set an ambitious target, to reduce by 50 per cent the deaths and serious injuries resulting from road accidents by 2020.
The effect is already taking place. Despite road accidents rising from 533,875 in 2017 to 548,598 last year, road fatalities had fallen from 6,265 to 5,870 respectively. However, KLCT Group Marketing Manager Michael Hutt felt that the industry should do more to reduce
road accidents and strive for a safer operating environment.
“Truck crashes cause lost lives as well as huge losses in productivity, property and personal injury. It always surprised me that many people see safety as a cost to their business while we were helping customers improve safety and reduce costs for more than 85 years. It is key that standards are enforced and this mind-set be addressed.”
SC3OCT Focus programme
As the only full-service fleet tyre management provider in Malaysia that uses the SC3OCT Focus programme, the Group would like to help commercial fleet operators enhance safety and align with the regulations. Hutt explained that the SC3OCT Focus programme was a piecemeal total tyre management service, with the aim of helping fleet customers drive forward with profitability, inclusive of new tyres, retreaded tyres and tyre related products, 24/7 breakdown coverage, tyre service and maintenance,
manpower as well as data management and tyre tracking system to track the tyres from cradle to grave. In short, he said, the company focused on its speciality tyre management and fleet operation. The end-to-end services, he said, began with tyre assessment to understand the condition of the tyre and identify current and past trends in tyre wear. While faults in the maintenance regimen could result in a shortened tyre life, operator use could have an equally profound
impact. Thus, after establishing a baseline in tyre performance, the next step was to identify the problem and pay a visit to the site to have an operational assessment.
“Fleet companies must choose the right tyres for their applications, and this is our expertise. Retreaded tyres have received some bad press, but safety regulations haven’t been effectively enforced, leading to poor providers being able to sell unsafe tyres, sometimes illegally. We want to stamp this out and help the industry