Page 52 - RB-93-20-2

TIA CONFERENCE
2020 OTR Tire Conference is TIA’s Second Largest
Speakers and panel provide insight into the business By Dave Zielasko
The Tire Industry Association’s (TIA) 2020 Off-the-Road Tire Conference, Feb. 19-22, 2020, at the Renaissance Esmeralda in Indian Wells, Calif., attracted the second largest crowd in its 65-year history.
More than 500 delegates from 40 states and 12 countries attended the event, which also ranked as the
OTR tyre industry is seeing change right now. They include tyre and equipment connectivity; artificial intelligence (AI); electrification and automation; workforce demographics; the internet of things (IoT); and green philosophies, products and practices. Connectivity will give vehicle
next five years, 75% of workers will be millennials. These are the people who will be taking over the industry in the next 25 to 30 years and who will be faced with all this change. Barna, however, questioned the relevance of these impending changes when it comes to the day-to- day running of a business in a highly
to slow. Single family housing is expected to fall 5% in 2020 after slipping 3% in 2019, while multifamily housing, which fell 11% in 2019, is forecast to drop 15% this year. Construction of commercial, institutional and manufacturing buildings also is predicted to decline in 2020.
A bright spot is public works construction, which Dodge Data predicted will increase by 4% this year, while construction of power and utility facilities is expected to fall 27%.
Outside the Dodge report, information from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that within the numbers certain segments should do well, Rohlwing said. “What I think we’re looking at moving forward is almost two markets. You’re going to have a single-family home market and you’re going to have the mega, 20-plus multi-family markets,” he said. What is happening in the Northeast and Midwest, meanwhile, “is dragging the whole thing down.” Rohlwing said the Dodge Data forecast calling for a 27% drop for power utility construction in 2020 “blows my mind.” “With everything going on right now and how dependent we are on electricity, with electric cars and everything else, to think that we are not investing in utilities is kind of frightening.”
Data from the American Road Transportation and Builders Association (ARTBA) presents a different take of what’s going on, according to Rohlwing. It looks at the value of construction, and the organisation forecasts 4.6% growth in this area in 2020. This includes “a lot of growth” in construction for public works, highways and bridges and fairly strong growth in ports, waterways and airports. Building roads requires aggregate, stone, rock, asphalt and concrete, he said. And a lot of OTR tyres will be needed for these projects.
Canadian Economic Forecast
Tire and Rubber Association of Canada President Glenn Maidment told OTR Tire Conference attendees he sees an upbeat market for OTR tyres in Canada. “I am extremely optimistic about what the OTR tyre markets will look like over the next couple of years in Canada,” he said. Mining is important economically to Canada, he said, and he considers the mining sector a proxy for OTR tyre sales. Mining represents 7.5% of the country’s gross domestic product
Jeff Barna
largest OTR Tire Conference ever held in the western part of the U.S. The conference typically alternates between locations on the East and West Coasts.
In addition to the strong turnout, conference attendance included 163 companies, many of which took part in the tabletop exhibition that was held twice during the three-day event.
The conference offered a wide- ranging educational programme, featuring a manufacturer’s keynote from Yokohama Tire Corp., a panel discussion on millennial employees and an economic outlook for the mining, aggregate, housing, infrastructure and construction markets in the U.S. and Canada, which are key drivers of the OTR tyre industry.
Manufacturers keynote
In their manufacturer’s keynote, Yokohama President Jeff Barna and Bruce Besancon, vice president of OTR sales, jointly discussed changes taking place in the OTR tyre business and how industry professionals will have to adapt to meet the needs of end users. Besancon cited six areas where the
feedback not only to the driver but to the dispatcher, he said, and possibly to the tyre manufacturer of what’s happening in real time. Block chain technologies are entering the mining realm and will impact how payments get processed, he said. “It will be essentially payment on moment of work performed, things of that nature,” he said.
Turning to the green movement and electrification, Besancon asked what is considered green. “Where does this stick with you as an independent tyre dealer, or as a person who runs a fleet to service many of these mines and quarries?” he asked. Could companies at some point ask, “what is your sustainability plan before you come on my site?”
Discussing workforce, Besancon wondered whether the OTR industry will be employing people or robots in the future. “Have you thought about a robot going out on a service call?” he asked. But before that, there may be new technology that, through the internet of things, could calibrate the torque wrench as a service tech walks toward the vehicle.
But do not forget the people skills, Besancon said, noting that in the
competitive, highly dynamic market. “After all, is it not about fundamentals...?” he said.
“Where Yokohama is coming from today, and this applies to distributors, dealers, end users, it’s about making it safer, more productive, more efficient, more sustainable, including keeping the company alive and profitable,” he said. “I think these are the fundamentals, that from my perspective, really keep us grounded.”
The reality is technology is coming, Besancon concluded. But the new technologies must be enablers to do things differently.
U.S. Economic Forecast
Speakers from TIA and the Tire and Rubber Association of Canada (TRAC) painted a mixed forecast for the construction and mining segments of their respective countries during presentations at the conference.
Citing construction data from Dodge Data & Analytics, TIA Senior Vice President of Training Kevin Rohlwing said after 10 years of economic expansion in the U.S., housing and commercial construction is forecast
52 Retreading Business