Mining Done Smarter: How Training and Software Drive Results
In this episode of Around the Bead Podcast, AL Klinge shares his unique perspective on the global OTR tire industry, drawing from decades of experience in Australian mining and tire management. He discusses how his family's business evolved through innovation, including the development of tire management software and comprehensive safety programs that have influenced industry practices.
The conversation explores the differences between Australia's government-regulated safety standards and the United States' industry-led approach, highlighting the importance of structured training, standardized procedures, and continuous education for tire technicians. Tom also explains why successful service providers become embedded partners within mining operations rather than simply supplying products or labor.
Looking toward the future, the discussion examines autonomous mining trucks, robotics, and the role of technology in tire service, while emphasizing that human observation and experience remain irreplaceable. The episode concludes with a powerful message about protecting workers' physical and mental health, reminding listeners that the decisions made early in a career can shape their quality of life for decades to come.
🔧 Topics Covered:
AL Klinge’s journey into the OTR tire and mining industry
Building a family business around innovation and tire management software
How Australia's mining industry approaches safety and training
Government regulation vs. industry self-regulation
The importance of standardized tire technician training
Service providers vs. traditional tire dealers in mining operations
Creating a strong safety culture through near-miss reporting
Mental health awareness in mining and heavy industries
Automation, robotics, and autonomous mining trucks
The role of human expertise alongside emerging technologies
Why long-term partnerships outperform transactional service
Protecting technicians' health through proper training and ergonomics
Show Notes:
Episode: Mining Done Smarter: How Training and Software Drive Results
Host: Joseph, and AL Klinge
Runtime: 69 minutes
Summary: AL Klinge joins Around the Bead to discuss safety, innovation, and the future of the OTR tire industry. From Australia's mining regulations and technician training to autonomous equipment, mental health, and long-term service partnerships, the conversation highlights why investing in people and safety is just as important as investing in technology.
What You'll Learn:
How Australia's safety standards have influenced global best practices in OTR tire service.
Why consistent training and certification are essential for reducing workplace injuries.
The difference between being a tire dealer and becoming a true mining service partner.
How near-miss reporting helps prevent serious incidents before they happen.
Why safety culture depends on trust—not just compliance and paperwork.
The opportunities and limitations of robotics and autonomous equipment in mining.
How technology can improve efficiency while still relying on human judgment and experience.
Why mental health deserves as much attention as physical safety in demanding industries.
The long-term impact of workplace habits on a technician's health and quality of life.
Why investing in people, training, and safety ultimately benefits both employees and businesses.
Links:
Visit our website for full transcripts and resources
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Transcript:
00:06
Around the beat podcast, tire talk for trucking, mining, agriculture, and more. Your home for fleet solutions. Aiming to inform, pioneer, and entertain the tire world in connected industries. Sponsored by East Bay Tire, keeping essential industries moving forward.
00:34
Around the Beat is back and we've got Al Clling in studio of Clling. Al, welcome to the pod. You ready to kick the tires? >> I'm ready. >> Let's just get going. We've been talking about trucks. Um, you are a leader in the mining industry. You guys train. You
00:51
guys have software. Uh, you've got a diesel powered Hyundai that you run around with. >> Yeah. >> Um, seriously, what's the story of Cling? Give us give us a little bit of a start. >> Oh, the story of Clling takes place a long time before I was ever even a a
01:08
star in my father's eye. 1971, my parents uh got together in a small town, small country town in Australia, western um out in the desert in the bush. And uh basically my dad got a loan from his um father-in-law to buy a small ute we call them. So a small truck like
01:29
an El Camino basically. >> Um >> a couple of tire levers and a compressor >> and uh he started a service business on his own. So he wasn't a tire dealer to begin with. He worked for Goodyear. That's how he got his trade at 15 and got kicked out of school and went and
01:48
learned to fit tires and then he was working very very hard to keep up with a trucking company and the trucking company was very um you know pushy with him about you know get these things done quickly and he thought to himself you know why are you guys getting why why
02:04
are you so pushy about this? You're getting the tires you're getting the tire you're paying for the tires and you're getting the service basically for free. and he said, 'Well, you're interrupting my day. You know, my trucks can't run if you're working on them. So,
02:15
his business, very first one, was designed around working on a weekend when the trucks didn't run. So, he would spend all weekend fitting the tires that they had already purchased, and they paid him for the service. >> Mhm. >> So, that was his that was his in. And
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from there, it was uh off to the Big Smoke, the big city uh as a tire dealer. Um I think they had five or six or or more locations in the state. What's the What's the What's the big city? >> Uh Brisbane. Brisbris. Brisbane in Queensland. >> And uh they grew into a pretty
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successful commercial tire dealership um company. >> Uh and then I think it was 1976 or five. Um I was going to say don't quote me, but it's too late for that. um where he had a phone call from a friend in the industry who was working in a mine uh in a place called Groot
03:07
Island, which is in the northern uh part of the country up in the Gulf. And it's about a far as far away from here as uh uh maybe like Wyoming, Casper or something. It's like a very long way. >> And he said, "Hey, would you like to come work with big tires and stuff like
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that?" Yeah, sure. You know, I work on tractors and things. And he took a plane up there. He had no idea where he was going and he landed on a mine and fell in love with the earth mover attires. So he'd never seen something so big. It was so different. It required a different
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level of thinking. It changed his perspective. And from there the business took a turn into mining and uh and otr. Yeah. >> And then just rocketed from there. >> Yeah. I'm not sure if it rocketed. Um you know, I think it was uh and I think you understand it's a real grind. Um you
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know, especially back then. So we're talking uh you know 70s 80s there was high interest rates there's you know strikes there's all kinds of economic pressures and and and different environments plus both of my parents um you know weren't highly educated so they
04:12
were just making this up as they went along you know they were following their nose and >> and everything but I think in the in 1980 is when they they started on the software >> right >> so the whole idea was once again focusing on their service. So the
04:28
software was something that my father called my mother which you only got to do once a week from this mine. So you had to like you know reserve time >> to get on this. It was like a two-way radio but you know but not but not a phone. So something in between.
04:44
>> Had to make phone call count. >> Basically he had to take his boots off as well which when he tells the story he really complains. He says they make me take my boots off to go do this thing. So >> why? uh because uh it's a manganese mine. >> So manganese is like a really black uh
05:00
invasive sort of powder >> sub substance and after you work in a manganese mine you'll find you know uh little bits of it in your ear weeks later you know up your nose like it just gets in everywhere. >> So the office was very clean and everything but he called my mother and
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said hey you know that that computer we have which is you know half the size of your truck back then? >> Yeah. She says yes. and he goes, "Do you think that you could get it to track tires by serial number?" Like, so we could measure tread wear and pressure
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and stuff because I I think we're making the tires work much better, but I can't prove it to people. >> Um, and she said, "Yeah, I I think I could. Give me give me a uh a couple of weeks and I'll figure it out cuz that's back then that's what just what you did."
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>> Yeah. And uh he often tells people that's the the second time in her life where she had a weak moment and said yes to my father. But uh yeah so the software was just internal and then from there as technology you know grew um because back then there was no personal
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computers or anything uh it was all massive computers. There weren't even mouses uh to begin with. When they first started rolling this out in the '9s and 2000s they had to teach people how to use mouses. like a mouse on a on a thing and they used to use solitaire to teach
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people the the skills to do that because nobody knew how to drag and drop or click and and do any of that stuff. So I've been we collectively cling have been doing the software since software was around. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So when did you come into the business?
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>> Much later. So I was born in 19 oh 88. And so I'm giving away a lot of information here, but um and I was, you know, off doing school and doing my own thing after school for for a little bit. And I worked in the business in um many different ways like as a kid, you know,
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sorting wheel weights, uh you know, cleaning, now that I know, now I think about it, really annoying jobs like cleaning valve caps because who does that? It's not a real job, but that's that's what I did. Um, and then I came back in the uh the teens, the early early
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10s, and asked my dad, I was sick of working in hospitality. So, I was a a bar manager and a and a um poker machine manager at a at a local sports club. And uh I hated it. I was I was finished with it. And uh I asked my brother actually for for a job as a trainee tire fitter.
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And they said okay. They sent me up to a mine for three weeks to see how I would go. And >> what kind of mine? >> Um it was a mine called Ernest Henry in a place called Clon Curry. It was one of the hottest places in um Australia recorded um and held a record for a
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while and it was the second deepest pit in Australia as well. So it was a golden copper mine and it was blue rock. So blue rock is um really really hard rock and at a certain point when they were digging I remember getting told so the the boiler makers so the welders and stuff
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>> they were always in the pit and I remember asking my boss at the time um you know why why are they always down there and it was the digger teeth so the teeth on the shovels would wear out almost every shift so every day every 24 to 40 hours they would start wearing out
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cuz the the ground was just so hard. We used to wear tires down to um you know at night sometimes you could see the sparks because of the belts. Um holy smokes >> it was really cool. It was really really different. So Hard Rock Mining and and tire management. Uh so we had a fleet of
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793s and 830s uh Kamatus and and Caterpillars was really different. It was really cool. It was a good way to start. good way to cut my teeth. >> And so they you they just shipped you off there and learn out in the field. >> Yeah. They they shipped me off and said,
09:01
"Well, if if uh you know, you this guy Loach Bennett um who was my first manager said, if he thinks you're okay, then uh then you can you can have a job." >> So, and his um uh assessment of the me in the beginning was probably not very good. So, you know, I'd worked in hospitality.
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I was a real people person. I was a real joker. But, you know, you learn very, very quickly, and I learned on my first day and subsequent other times that you need to go slow. You need to listen to what you're told and follow instructions. And I've got, you know, a
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couple of little scars to prove it. >> Um, yeah. So, it was a formative experience. It was a Yeah. Welcome. >> So, what is Clling today? It's it's software. It's training. what what is the organization? >> So, Cling today is no longer a service business uh like we were. So, we don't
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have any tire technicians um um who work in the field doing that job anymore. We got out of that business in 2016. But what we do and specialize in today is the I I guess it's the the little bits that made us really good as a service provider. some of those parts. The
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software is one of them. And the software doesn't just mean uh granular asset management of tires and rims, which is which what we specialize in um and a field we pioneered. It also means we built software to help us audit, excuse me. We built software to help
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capture um part of our consulting business, which is our auditing um and assessments of mines and tire bays. So that philosophy and and how we do that is also in that training as well both uh US standards so with TIA and also Australian standards registered training
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organization as well. >> So you say audits I really wasn't familiar with that type of your business. You guys are going to a mindsite uh anywhere in the world and you're auditing their best practices. >> Yes. So it's um it's audits a probably an unfriendly word for it but it's the
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best one that fits. It's it's not an audit like it's a bit like tires, you know, it doesn't matter if it's a mine or if it's yourself um or anyone. Do people really ever enjoy buying tires? No. Like people don't not mind don't people don't. It's oh it means that I've
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broken something. So audits feel the same way, right? Like you get a tax audit that's scary. Yeah. >> That's a scary thought. It is not that that kind of audit. Um we go there and we we depending on what the customer needs, depending on uh what they've
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spoken to us about, what they've shared with us, we can look at uh 100 questions, which is what we would call our major hazards. So it's the things that are most likely to cause problems or hurt people or unfortunately kill people or you know over 300 questions
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and observations. And that's something where we would go and drive around the hall road and look at the tire environment, look at loading b uh like you know loading faces, how uh the tire team uh even you know how how they interact with other parts of the mine
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because from our perspective you're really not there just to take tires off and put tires back on. Part of the job is understanding that you have to be holistic and work in with the mine. you're a minor, you know, one if you're really working in with a mine, you need
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to stand with them behind their line. And that means working out how to communicate effectively with production. So, if you call up a production truck, if you're sitting in the field and you see a truck drive past with uh some big tread chunks taken out and it wasn't
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there when you saw it last time, um the instinct is, well, I want to call up that truck and get it to pull over and have a look. You know, I need to I need to inspect this. >> Production doesn't like that. So you need to you need to work out how to how to work with them over this.
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>> So it you're you're soup to nuts. I mean you're looking at production, you're looking at hall roads, you're looking at how their tire technicians and the operations are working together when you >> Yeah. Um everything um everything in between including uh depending on where
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they are in the world, what kind of training have they received. A big one is when was the last time people had training. >> Yeah. >> A lot of these mines uh >> depending on where you are in the world might train the operators of their their heavy machinery uh every year. >> Yeah.
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>> Or every other year. And you'll find that people on Tae maybe get training every you know it can vary depending on where you are in the world but every 3 to five or never. Is is the audit or third-party assessment, consulting, whatever it's called, uh, or whatever
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they decide to call it, is it triggered by an event or they do maintenance audits with you guys? Like, hey, we want Clling to come in once every 18 months to take a look at our >> It's driven by the customer. Um, and we do have service providers um, who engage
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us to do audits as well because part of the outcomes are we build a ladder for them. So, it's about what are the opportunities for you to lift your game, you know, for you to improve safety. And we leave them not with a bunch of, you know, red letters on a piece of paper,
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but a bunch of green ones. Here's what you guys are doing well. Here's where you're benchmarked in terms of the industry. Um, and here's where you can improve. So, here's where you can really make a difference in your your team's lives. Um, your people retention,
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whatever the outcome may be. >> Yeah. >> Um, but uh Yeah. So, where do you guys travel to do this? Oh, >> everywhere. Um, so we do audits everywhere from the the top of this continent. So, um, up in Canada all the way down to Argentina and in between Mexico, Peru,
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um, Mongolia, Indonesia, Australia, obviously, Africa, parts of Africa. It's um, it's it's everywhere. There are big holes, as I say, as I said at the border. Um, big holes is why I'm here. >> That's unbelievable. >> Yeah. >> I got to ask, what's the story with the shirts?
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>> Ah, the shirt. Yeah. So, this is um uh a very unique set of Hiz. >> Yeah. >> Um it by a company called Tradem. >> Uhhuh. >> Mut meaning dog and trade meaning tradies. Yeah. >> So, it's an Australian company that set out um after a tragedy in the founders's
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lives with a friend um to essentially help mental health in in for men in in heavy industries and stuff. So, very cool. >> They they decorate these and design these in a way to be flamboyant so that people know within a workplace that you're someone they can talk to if they
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need to. Um you know, saying like it's it's not weak to speak and things like that are really um part of what it's about. It's about spreading awareness and and buying these shirts actually funds a uh a call center where people can call in and get counseling for free. >> Very cool.
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>> Um so it's a mental health initiative. Underneath the the flap there's even a little QR code. Um yeah, it's uh it's a it's it's a really good way um for us and all of our team members in the field have multiple of these shirts and wear them. Um, so that you know like it it
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may not even be part of what we talk about here today, but on a mine if you look up this the statistics for mental health, it's it's really tough. >> Um, it's really tough in any um uh manual industry, but in mining where people are often separated from their families for weeks
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at a time. um you know they don't they don't have the nicities of home or you know there's there's just so many other pressures and a lot of performance um that's required for them to be safe um and things like that it can it can really drag um so it's something that I
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promote wherever I can and uh yeah I'm proud that it's an Australian um initiative but there's nothing stopping it so we have customers in Canada who now wear the shirt they buy them themselves >> I feel like it's popular across variety industries in Australia Yeah, I mean I
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can't picture it, but I' I feel like I've seen the shirts. >> Yeah. Yeah, you definitely have. So, at um TIA at the uh the OTR conference, I wear them. Um my team wear them and as I said, a few of our customers have started wearing them. Maybe not even
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because of us, you know, they've just found it on social media and things like that. >> And it well, it checks a lot of boxes. It's it's high viz in two different extremely high viz. >> Extremely high viz in two different ways. Uh it's it's smart. It's sharp
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looking. It's professional. It checks boxes for a lot of guys. It's better than a coveralls for a lot of tags. >> Yeah. No, it is. And and it comes in many different varieties. So, this is just one design. Um, and it was the the the cleanest one I had for this. Um,
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because uh I don't get out in the field that often anymore, but I I do get out in my yard. >> So, some of them end up with uh with some some stains from that, but I thought I'd wear a clean one. >> So, how many how many people on your team are going internationally? I would say
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most if not all of our our sales team um are field people. Maybe there's one person who doesn't particularly move around a lot. Yeah. >> Um but every single one of those will work internationally. So um we have two people here based in the United States
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and North America. Both of those people will go to uh Africa, they'll go to Asia, they'll go to Africa if they're needed. Yeah. Um, it's it's really not about being, well, my Australian team works in, you know, East Asia and, you know, Australia and stuff. No, they they
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they go where they're needed. >> That's Roy and Caesar. >> Yeah, Roy and Caesar. Caesar, who you know, >> I know. Yeah, Roy have met a ton of times. I mean, a wealth of knowledge. Um, he actually investigates uh fatalities. >> Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, that's uh
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it's a part of our business that is uh you know, we wish we'd just dry up and go away. Um it would be great if we didn't have to do that um ever anymore. Um but unfortunately um in our position as being people who've done this job for a long time successfully and managed
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people and and helped uh you know massive operations get better at it and be safer. >> People look to us as an authority for that and an objective third party. So we often do uh participate in that particularly with uh the audits. So a make safe is what they call it sometimes
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after an incident. Um >> I've never I've never heard that before. >> Yeah. Make so like uh essentially they they've uh the incidents happened and they've stopped everything. Usually a mind just stops. So that's the first thing. Nothing happens and then they
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investigate it maybe themselves, maybe they call us or somebody else and then they've said, "Okay, we've got some actions out of this. Some things we identified that were contributing factors um or things that concerned us about this. let's start working on them.
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And that's why they may call us and say, "Can you help coordinate our makesafe? Um, improve practices, organize training for us, um, whatever, build procedures." >> The the industry as a whole doesn't hear about the fatalities. Um, I mean, it's it's little whispers here and there. Um,
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MSHAW has to report it. >> Yeah. >> Um, but you usually don't get a detailed report for a really really long time. So I I have no clue how I mean any any loss of life is is is tragic, but how how many there are on an annual basis. Um where the mistakes and the improvements need to be.
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>> Yeah, it's it's a tough one. I think Australia is similar. So we have uh um we're much more uh the you know Australians love a good rule. Um so Australia has a lot of rules particularly about tires. Got two standards. um one for uh rims, one for
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tires, and they dictate how serious, you know, these things are taken and and and all of that, but it's the same. Coroners in Australia will take years sometimes to produce a report that's comprehensive about what happened. >> St. You say rims and tires, you got a a
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rim association, a a a state state agency and tire agency. >> There's various agencies in Australia that deal with different parts of the tire industry, but it's government driven. So the the government like Australian Standards, they call it. So the same thing that dictates uh
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>> what we were talking about you know what cars can come into the country there's a standard for tires and rims and for us if it's over 24 in it's considered an otr tire and therefore it has to be treated in a certain way and it comes with all of these rules and and
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>> over 24 in rim diameter. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Um so you listen to Trevor Adams. We were talking about this earlier. >> Oh yeah. Uh that's that's is that what he's talking about? That's a a state uh a government agency that's credentiing uh processes.
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>> I think it's a little bit different. So the Australian standards, and I'm not I'm not an expert on this whatsoever, but um to my knowledge, there's probably only about five or six countries on Earth that have standards to do with tires. >> Um and um which are
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>> or otr tires. think uh Japan, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, um and there's probably a couple of others that I'm missing. And I don't think the United States is one of them, but I could I could be wrong. >> You have you have the TIA, the Tire Industry Association,
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>> which is self-regulation. Yes. You know, you guys are >> and something my father talked about a lot. Um which is very true. the industry doesn't regulate themselves, then someone in the government will and and that can be a really good thing, but it
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more it can often not be because you'll find somebody is just trying to band-aid something. They don't really understand. They may not consult the industry very well or they only consult certain people. So, >> well, it's not enforceable, right? That's that's that's Trevor's point. Um
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is okay, you have self-regulation, but it's an optin, opt out. there's definitely uh um strengths to it and I think hopefully in you know most uh most countries then the market can take care of that right so if you've got people who are self-regulating like uh
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Trevor or anyone else and they're doing a really good job the market decides well that's who I'm going to use because I don't want incidents I want my operation to run smoothly but it's a it's it's a it is more difficult that way but yeah in Australia we have
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standards and then we've got the states who do their own sort of uh recommendations and regulations as well. Um but the the government also dictates the training. So you can look up right now you can go and look up um the certificates that you you need to do the
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job uh in otr in Australia >> and uh the parts of that and they'll dictate exactly what you need to learn so that companies can go out and build training that aderes to that um and then submit it to the government for regulation of uh being able to train and assess it.
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>> So was that in place when you were at Tire Techch? Yes, it's been in place for a while. >> So, how often do tire techs in Australia need to be retrained? >> Yeah, we call it refresher training. Um, training and assessing in in Australia, there's a very big difference. You don't
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just get trained. Um, great. You've been trained. I don't care. >> Uh, you need to be assessed and competent. So, somebody needs to look at what you've done and say, "Oh, yeah. So, I can see you've filled out my little book and you did the quiz and you
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watched the videos. that's all great, but I need to watch you do this job. I need to see evidence that you've done this. I need to you need to demonstrate your competence to me for me to sign off. Um it's it's a little bit more stringent. We have that little extra step there.
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>> But um yeah, I would say it depends on the states. So some of them are every two years or 3 years that they require that. Um, but it's it's naturally starting to move to a point where it's probably every two years. I'd say it's a bit of the best best practice. Um, but
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it's uh it's it's good in a way because it means in Australia it's legislated. You know, it's part of the reason you need to stay open. So if a a mines's inspector goes to a mine and they find that uh there's an incident that's happened well in in any part but we'll
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say today it's the Tai bay unfortunately um and they say oh let me have you look at your training records and these people aren't trained properly and they have never been trained or there's big gaps there >> that person can lock the gate they can go put a padlock on the gate and say
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well I think you guys have finished mining today let's uh you know we need to talk about a plan on how to fix this and remedy this and It's it's really serious, you know, they don't muck around. >> It it'd almost be as if MHA was regulating best practices and safety
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when it comes to tire tax. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, it could be. Um, which is a scary thought, I'm sure, for people over here. What are you talking about? Like, you know, I'm an MA person walk up and locked the gate over something like that. Like, don't get me wrong, I I
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can't think of a time where a mines inspector in Australia has gone and locked the gate because someone didn't have a certificate of training. Yeah. >> Um but the the point is the power is there to make those kind of decisions to to compel people to be responsible.
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>> What's the what do you think the injury and and fatality numbers in Australia are as a result of that? >> Yeah. Well, I think because it's not specific just to to tires and it's and it's everything. It's probably had a uh pretty strong effect, I'd say, because
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if you look at what mines invest in, safety's always at the top of the list. Mhm. >> Um definitely always at the top of the list. So I I would say Australia as a mining um country and industry would be best practice and and that's part of where um a question you asked earlier
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and I I didn't answer properly was you know that's part of how we built um our auditing process which we call tire ARM by the way. So it's an acronym for tire application risk management. So we built that based on Australian standards and um you know our experience in the field
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because we know if we go to any country on earth more than likely what Australia is after is higher than what that other country is after in terms of regulation and safety >> and that's auditing of the service providers. >> Um it it doesn't have to be a service
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provider. It could be um um you know the mine. So there's a lot of places in the world and Australia where the mine employs their own people. they don't have a service provider or a tie dealer >> but it is different over here >> uh because you tend not to have um you
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tend to have a lot of tire dealers doing the servicing of of mines um which I think in in my perspective in my experience is different to a service provider. So for me every service provider is a tire dealer but not every tire dealer is a service provider.
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>> Explain that a little bit more. Um so for me a service provider is different because uh we spoke earlier about sort of standing behind that mining line with the customer. >> Yeah. >> So that's sort of the the philosophical difference I have with a service
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provider. A service provider may be there's no there's less likely to be drive on drive off. They're more likely to have permanent people that never leave the mine or never work anywhere else. They have equipment that never leaves the mine um at all. They wear
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mining uniforms. They speak and and talk in those uh the ways that the customer does. Um and they tend to have long-term contracts as well, you know. So, they they tend not to just do schedule work um and ad hoc things. They tend to be, you know, we've got a two-year or
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one-year contract, things like that. >> They're bought in. It's not daytoday. It's not what we're profiting on today, what we're doing today. It's it's a whole picture. >> Yeah. It's not, you know, we're gonna get, you know, Bob and Juan to uh stop working at the mine and come help us
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with something else. You know, that that that mentality, it it happens definitely. It's not to say that there aren't people out there who do it and do a really good job. >> Um but in in my estimation, um and when the people we deal with, there's a
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really big mentality shift. Like service providers tend to have and a lot of man tie dealers in in America doing a great job at it. Um uh from what we see a lot of them have safety people now like dedicated safety people >> but service providers often have a
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mining safety person or an otr safety person >> and they often have an otr separate business. So they have you know uh tire dealer you know service service company A and then mining service company A and they have a different little mast head on their invoices. They
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may have a slightly different team taking care of it. You know, are their tools not shared with other people who just, you know, needed it for for, you know, a big industrial tire that just wouldn't move and stuff like that. It's um it's a for us it's a wide chasm, but
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for a lot of people in the industry that we talk to, the tie deals are very experienced and they go, "What are you talking about?" You know, I I I see myself as that. Well, you need to talk to the customer and see whether they see you that way. >> Yeah,
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>> you want them to see you that way. But if if if you step into that world, you got to be prepared to talk the talk and and walk the walk with them. >> Yeah. Well, I think we're seeing more and more of that. What you're talking about that separation of an earth mover
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division, an otr division, those specialty folks who live and breathe mining. >> Oh, yeah. >> Um the safety uh the safety position, yeah, it's gotten really popular in the United States. My criticism of it is there's a big difference between safety and compliance.
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>> And I think a majority of those roles are focused on compliance. It's the it's workers comp. It's uh paperwork for insurance, for state, for regulation. Um is it focused on the actual safety of our people in the field? >> A lot of times I don't think it is, but
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it's encompassed in that role. Yeah, it's it's it's uh it's different shades, right? Like it's sort of whether it's something that they do often or it's a necessary evil and and I think some of those things can really distract safety people who are dedicated and want the best
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>> because their teams say, "Oh, well, I I now have somebody who can help me uh you know, to make sure that everyone's um signed off with MAR." >> You know, they've done all that and which is obviously part of it. part of the role. But if you'd say,
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"Well, I'm I'm going to lose a couple of days a month to doing that. Wouldn't you rather have me driving around with the guys on a truck just doing some observations >> or building a near miss program?" Yeah. >> Um so that's something in Australian mining safety that's that's uh pretty
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popular is um and I believe in is near miss culture. So >> reporting incidents is one thing, you know, like ah my tool broke and it nearly took my head off. Hydraulic thing. Great. Uh, well, not great, but thank you for telling us and filling out all of this paperwork. I crushed my
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finger. I I bent a nail. Okay. But what about all of the things that happened that didn't cause any injuries at all >> and they didn't stop you from working, >> but if you knew about or the safety person knew about, they might start building a control for that. They may
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start to build a way to make that not happen anymore. They're what we call near misses. And and near miss reporting is something that needs to happen more and more, I think. But people feel like they're dobbing themselves in. You know, they come in at the end of a shift and
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say, "Oh, here's the three things that almost went wrong." Um, but in in mining, that's something that's uh seen as really positive. >> It it's a trust with the safety person. Yeah. Right. In in mining, there's that trust already. Hey, we talk about every
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risk all the time. Um, outside of mining, that trust isn't there of, hey, this almost happened. Am I going to get in trouble for uh almost getting hurt? >> Um is I'm going to get in trouble by all my peers because the safety person is going to put in all these new standards
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because I was the one who said this. But that culture in mining is is safety is number one. Otherwise, there is no production. >> Yeah, it is. But um all of those examples are still exactly what people say. They go, "Oh, you know, why did you say that? Now you're going to have to
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get interviewed by the safety guy for 30 minutes and you know he's going to come lecture us every morning for a week on holding the handrails when we walk down the stairs. >> Yeah. >> Um because that's real thing, you know, like I've I've I've seen people on mind sites get
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>> pulled up and uh and asked to uh explain themselves when they've walked down the stairs and not use three points of contact. So you're supposed to hold the handrail. Why why weren't you doing that? Oh, well, I was uh trying to find uh your phone. You weren't using your
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phone while you're walking. You know, that's against regulations. Yeah. Yeah, I know. So, it's uh it's definitely that that kind of um knucklebiting like it's uh it's there. And I think that's sometimes where safety kind of has gets a bad name in itself. People um go
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sniffing out things that um maybe there isn't a reasonably practicable way to move forward. And reasonable is relative. >> Yeah. No, it is. Um, so I'm I'm sure that the industry could build, you know, tire cages the size of this room. >> Yeah.
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>> But it's not reasonably practicable to do that for, you know, super large earth moving equipment. >> So we don't. >> Yeah. So ultraclass, I've been wanting to ask, you live in that world. You guys go around. You go everywhere. That's probably for ultraclass operations. Yep.
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um something I've never seen, especially on the West Coast. Uh seen pictures, videos, but what's different at an ultraclass mine site versus uh some of the quaries uh that we work day in day out today. >> Oh, well, first of all, we'll have to get you get you there. Yeah.
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>> So, we'll have to find a a customer with some big stuff and and uh you know, find a time when we're going to go there and and give you a call. Uh cuz that would be really cool. First thing personally from my perspective when when I fitted tires I was working with uh 57 in for
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most of my career and then towards the end I got to work on some 63 in and I can tell you that the the 63 in stuff was really different just even in the way that uh you're using we would use like a tire handler a forklift with the tire handler attachment. Um even the way the rim or
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the wheel would sit in it with the sidewall flexing and everything is completely different. um you know, it sags a little bit more. There's a little bit more give in it. Um you know, the the 57s were always a little bit more tight. So, I never saw any deflection
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really when it was uh but it's even even just doing that part of the job was really different. And uh they're still both massive. And it is you couldn't think that they could get much bigger, but you know, I could walk up and jump on the side of a 57 in uh tire if it's
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sitting on the floor. A 63 in definitely not anymore. I can't jump that high, >> but uh yeah, and and also the tools. So, uh one of the hazards that's going to present itself a little bit more >> is that everything's a bit higher for you. So, even a really tall guy like
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yourself, you could probably reach the valve on, you know, a 793 or something like that if you needed to. On a 63in vehicle, you probably can't. And the valving may be um you know, mega bore or something else that that requires a different set of tooling um as well. What's a mega bore?
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>> Um, so there's like super large bore. Um, and then mega bore is just a the souped up version above that. So it's just got a wider gauge. Air, you know, more air can get in and out faster. >> One guy changing uh a 797 tire. >> I hope not. >> No.
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>> Um, yeah, I would I would definitely say that's not a good that would be a red flag for me. >> Really? >> Uh, yeah. Yeah, definitely not. I don't think one person doing that job is appropriate. I think uh I think it's a twoperson job um for sure and mostly
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because uh you know it's if you were doing anything else with that level of heavy equipment. Anything else most engineers would recommend two people. It seems like tires become something like ah one person can do it. Those guys just do everything. And you know we all kind
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of wear that on our shoulders like yeah we can and we could if we needed to. But it's you know who's there to to spot for you? um who's there to uh tell you when something's not working or keep an eye on something like these these these pieces of equipment are so big. Um
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there's so many things that you need to worry about. Having two people is is definitely what I would recommend um for sure. And I think the Australian standards uh you know push that way as well. >> So uh what's a 797 tire change time frame look like?
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>> Um it it depends what kind it depends what job you're doing. So, if you're taking the the tire and rim, you know, off with it or the wheel, um, and you have to undo all of the the wheel nuts and everything, that that can take a long time. >> But you're ch if you're just changing
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tires, you're not >> like a vertical mount where you just take it off. Probably a couple hours, you know, >> for a single tire. >> Yeah, maybe um hour and a half maybe. Depends on the tool tools, the team, the setup. >> Uh, a lot of mines we visit um they
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might not have a roof. So this is a permanent people on a crew on a mine and I worked on many sites where there was no roof. We were outside 100% of the time in the sun. And that may seem like an innocuous. Who cares? But >> you know that that definitely adds to
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the job. If it's hotter, you're going to move. You're going to have to move slower. Um sun gets in your eyes. There's all other kinds of hazards. Birds, rain, wind, all of these things play into it. But also, yeah, it's it's the level of tooling. Um the level of
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training and supervision as well. supervision. I can't uh speak highly enough of that in those um environments where you've got like the these these trucks can't just stop when you need to. When you get them for a period of time, you need to get what you need to get done and get them
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back out on the road producing. >> Well, that's what I'm trying to conceptualize. It's a $5 million truck. Yep. >> And it's two hours per tire. If you're doing the drives, uh you're pulling all four off. That's a whole shift. >> Yeah, it's it's uh yeah, if you're doing
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what we would call the ass end um you know, the whole back end of the truck, it can take a long time. And it's a lot of the the real like slow is smooth and smooth is fast is really what plays into this. Like it's really a symphony. I can see it in my head if I close my eyes. Um of how
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beautiful things can work if you prep. So depending on your setup, you may have rims that are prefitted with jewelry. uh jewelry, meaning uh you know the uh bead seat band and and flange, they're already pressed into the tire. >> So, if you have all that done, you can
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cut that down really, you know, significantly. If you've done all the prep, so you've cleaned the tires that you're going to put on before you got there, you've inspected them, you've filled them with additive, um you've cleaned and um all of the components and
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they're sitting there ready to go. >> Additive, >> uh like tire additive, like um >> tire life. Yeah. Tire life, stuff like that. Yeah. >> Is that standard? >> Yep. >> In a in a 797, it's always going to have an additive. >> I think so. Um, from what we observe, it
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is. Um, so I there were very few places that I worked where we didn't. Some people, if they're using nitrogen, may not use tar additive um because it's uh, you know, takes care of the rim um, a little bit better. But in my experience, you want that rim to be >> I never heard that.
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>> Yeah. Yeah. Um I haven't I I never got to work with nitrogen but I do know um one of the reported benefits of that is less corrosion of the um the steel >> really. So you have some some mines are running nitrogen uh instead of tire life >> a lot or maybe not instead of tire life
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but instead of air instead of atmosphere we'll say >> which is mostly nitrogen anyway. So, it's kind of funny that way. Yeah. >> But, uh, in Australia, particularly on the West Coast, where I'm not from, >> where we have a lot of iron ore, >> so there are fantastic thunderstorms.
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>> And I can tell you, if a a 797 gets struck by lightning, >> um, and there's an internal tire fire um that happens, which can happen, you really want to reduce the likelihood of that. And one of the ways to do that is, um, people use nitrogen. So what?
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Nitrogen reduces its its capacity to be a bomb if it gets hit by lightning and you got a tire fire. >> Um so it's an inert gas. Um so unlike oxygen, I I don't think it can feed. So if it starts if something starts, if there's paralysis in the tire and it and
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it begins, then it it kind of snuffs itself out. I'm not a You didn't ask me on here to be a chemical engineer. I'm definitely not. Yeah, it's a podcast whatever you want, >> but uh but yeah, that's um part of the the risk management process for mines
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that that have to work in areas where there's a lot of lightning. >> Wow, that's wild. >> Yeah. And and it also means that see just something it seems so small. Well, to some people maybe um to put nitrogen in a tire. Okay. If you if it's your nana's little uh car and she's going to
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drive around, she never moves it. Okay, sure. It might last a little bit longer or something. But on a mind, yeah, they're predominantly looking for ways to reduce the likelihood of the impact of of of something going wrong. And that's that's definitely one of the ways
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they've come up with it. >> Yeah, I was I was going to say it means that even topping up a tire uh takes a different form. So, you need to make sure that the valving is at 12:00, so it's right at the top because it's a heavy gas. So, you need to pump it in at
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a certain way. And then you need to purge the tire. So, if it's got anything that's not nitrogen in there, it needs to be purged and then topped back up and it needs to be at a certain percentage. So, you then measure the pressure, but the percentage of nitrogen in that tire.
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>> Are they mounting the tires where all the valve stems are lined up or do they have to if they're topping off all the tires, you have to inch it forward to do each one? >> Yeah, you have to inch it forward to make sure that they're at the top. That's that's what I was um exposed to.
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And I think most the the practice I used to I was taught is that you fit the valving to meet with the to align with the uh serial number which should align with the um lock ring groove. >> Wow. >> Gap. Sorry, the lock ring gap. So everything's lined up and you knew if
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you parked it at a certain point that you could do get everything you need done. >> So in the ultraclass world, uh we in the United States we use trucks for everything. Boom trucks, hand trucks. Um, is forklifts with an attachment the standard? Adam,
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>> yeah, it kind of depends. So, the forklift is uh what I um used for a very long time. So, a um eight or 16 ton forklift or all the way up to like a 30 ton forklift with a a tire handler attachment. Um but people do use I did use a couple of loaders as well. So,
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like a you know a loader with the same thing. So, it's still got a um you know, a tire handler on the front of it, but you're just sitting, >> I don't know, 8 mters from the tire and it's about, you know, 2 m off the floor. Um so, it can be difficult. Um but
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people get really precise with these with these things and it changes. So, >> the west coast of Australia is a lot of loaders. They really like using um front end loaders with tire handlers for this >> and the east coast is probably more tie handlers. We still do have a lot of boom
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trucks as well, but because people are permanent. >> Yeah. >> Um, and it really depends on the if they have concrete to drive around on, then obviously a forklift is is good. If you need to do tire changes in a pit or something, then you probably want a
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loader, right? Because uh it's a different environment. You need to get down there, need to tram with a a tire and >> Yeah. >> What about Canadian oil sands? >> I've never been up there. >> Really? >> Personally, no. No, I've never been to the oil stands. So,
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>> has your team? Um yeah, very uh uh we have had we do have a couple of customers up there. Yeah. >> Mhm. >> Um but I can't recall um what they use for those specific places, but it would probably be a mix, I would say. >> Yeah. >> Um like the the advantages of tie
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handler of a uh actually it's a it's a good point you bring up. I uh I I've got a couple of questions for the conference, for the otr conference, and one of them is uh I run a I'm running a a survey, but also a quiz. >> Yeah, you're a get you're a speaker.
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>> Yeah, I'm speaking there. And um which is great. And uh one of them is I put up a photo of all of these different tire handling machines. So, we've got, you know, a crane, an FC or a Stellar, a DIY, a forklift, a loader, um, and some other stuff. And I say, okay, which one
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of these is purpose-built for, uh, fitting tires, for servicing tires? And the real answer is none of them are. None of them are purpose-built. So, you have a truck that's designed to haul things that you've put a crane on the back of. It's that's not purpose-built.
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You have a truck that's been retrofitted for that. A forklift was not made to fit tires. you built something to put it on the front. So like from a design perspective, we haven't started with, okay, what if I built a machine from the ground up that was only there to fit
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tires. It wouldn't look like a Mac truck or, you know, any of those things. It would look completely different. Um because in any of those trucks, there are massive disadvantages. um any of those configurations, but every single one of them is an example
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of someone taking a machine that existed beforehand and then adapting it to that situation, which is a real eye opener for me. Um so I learned that from a industry roundt group called uh immersed um the earth mover um safety roundt. It's in Australia. is made up of u
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mining companies and companies like ours as well who who try and solve problems and and they essentially um I'll share the link with you afterwards but they essentially said >> you know we really looked at this and said no one really started with the actual way to do this and just built
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something around that needs everyone just adapted things to it which is kind of how tire fitters get treated everywhere. Hey just figure it out. Hey you don't have a roof. Hey you don't have the right tools. You're a guy that gets stuff done. Here's a new thing to get done.
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>> Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good luck. No way. That's uh I'm I'm sure there are people working on that. And and there is a couple of companies that have built purpose-built um uh HeadWorld's one of them um that I know of that built a machine that's only designed to fit
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tires. Um but it's uh you know, it's got its own limitations. Um you know, it's designed more for a workshop sort of environment and things like that. But, uh, it's just an interesting thing to think about. Everyone would think, "Oh, no." You know, a Stellar and FC, that's
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that's designed for me. Well, that part of it is. >> Yeah. That that that arm. >> Yeah. Yeah. The hands for sure. >> But the rest of it's a transportation machine with an engine PTO. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I never thought of that. >> So, you think that potentially robotics,
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specialized robotics get in there to do tire changes? >> That could be cool. Um, I think, um, there's probably, you know, the the sad part is there's probably just not enough money in it, um, for somebody. Um, but I think there's a lot of jobs as part of that that could
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really work. Like, uh, removing wheel nuts is one of them. Cleaning components. Um but then then you it comes back to uh so in mining we in Australia we automate we have uh automated trucks um autonomous hage in in Australia where we have 797s that
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drive themselves around mines and things and they're controlled by one person in an office in Perth. >> How how prevalent is that? >> Uh it's pretty prevalent. We've been doing they've been doing it for a long time. Um, so it's something in Australia
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that is pretty not standard, but um, big minds have autonomous vehicles and it's normal. Yeah. And they're huge. Uh, it's just it's crazy. And we've been through iterations of working out, okay, the machine, the computer can get these things to drive in the exact same line. >> Yeah.
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>> But what does that do to the road if they're only driving in the same exact line? Well, it's going to >> variation. >> Destroy the road. So then you get ruts, you know, built into it. Okay. They need to vary a bit. What happens if they encounter something in the road um that
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they can't straddle or are they supposed to straddle that? Because we tell operators not to straddle rocks. We tell them to go around them or call them up. All of those things have been conquered by companies like uh FMG or BHP and Riotinto who use that.
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>> So you got 50 50 dump trucks out there, 50 hall trucks, excuse me, that are >> autonomous ones. Hundreds. Yeah. >> Hundreds at one mine site. >> Yeah. Or at various mine sites. So, um yeah, I would say collectively, you know, there would be hundreds of them. >> Holy smokes.
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>> Yeah, it's it's pretty cool. Um but where it was going with autonomous stuff and where robotics in in tire fitting is um another a good friend of mine um had a great um point with robotics and automation is those autonomous trucks you've lost a bunch of senses by making
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it autonomous. What do you mean? Well, no one can see, no one can smell or hear or feel anything different. So, there's no operator there who says, "Wow, this this really feels different. I wonder I'm going to call maintenance and tell them that my I feel or I can smell
51:06
something that smells really weird." These are all things that those machines don't they don't smell anything. They don't feel Oh, that doesn't feel right. And I think the same >> it it drive right over a >> Oh, potentially, but it's like a an odd smell of some oil that's burning or
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something. It may not pick that up. um it won't feel that the struts are a bit stiff or something. You lose that human factor. And I think that would be the same with tire fitting if you automated part of it is you would get people who go like we'll say just removing wheel nuts.
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>> Uh if there was just a robotic arm, which would probably be quite easy to do. Yeah. >> That just zip them off and pop them down for you. They may not feel that that's threaded itself. You know that that was really tough. I might need to smack that
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out and replace that one unless you then teach it to do that. So, um I think in the beginning you would lose some of those uh potential points for improvement or safety points for a customer. >> Yeah. Well, you got and you got an expensive robot there. I'm trying to
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think if you're running a hundred trucks at a at a mine site, how often you're changing tires, too. >> Yeah. Well, it it depends on the type of mine. Um so, iron or uh they're not too deep those those mines. They're kind of shallow pits and they're but they're
52:18
over very very long distances. So um you know they may have to haul I'm not sure in miles but you know kilometers and kilometers um very long runs. So the tires wear differently to a coal mine which is quite soft. >> Um so they may not ever get down to a
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belt or anything like that. It's mainly just is there a rock some overburden that they're going to run over. Um but yeah, frequency of tire change, you know, some of these mines in the Pilra, these iron ore mines, I worked on a crew of uh 30 tire fitters. Um so yeah. >> Wow.
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>> So you'll have multiple tire bays for a mine. >> Yeah. >> Um and that's day and night shift. So not 30 people on day and 30 on night. Yeah. >> Um there might be, >> you know, six people on during day and four at night. Um not including a supervisor. and you'll be busy the whole
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time. Um, so you might do, like you were saying before, uh, you know, a whole truck for the day and then you've got one or two people who all they're doing is prepping for night shift. Um, yeah. >> Wow. >> Yeah. And that and that's you you hit on you asked something earlier. Would that
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be one person working on it? >> Yeah. >> Some minds uh some place in the world this is a reality. Uh, that's how they work unfortunately and they don't know any better um because they have great people who just do a job and get on with it. >> Mhm. But sometimes you can mitigate some
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of these things by saying, "Well, that person, if they're stuck and they're alone, if there's an opportunity to have two people on dayshift, maybe that's great." The night shift person, they should spend their whole time doing preparation and cleaning and inspections
53:59
and that way shift can do the jobs and night shift can prepare for them. So, there are ways around, you know, people limiting. Um, but it's about division of labor, being strategic. >> Yeah. A lot of different components. M so you're talking at O or you're
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presenting you're a speaker at otr conference next week. This won't air till after that. Uh what else are you bringing up >> to the audience? >> At the at the conference. >> Yeah. >> Um so I do the daily safety tips which is something my dad started. Um >> tell tell us about that.
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>> Yeah. So my dad uh was a he still is. He's a force of nature and uh when he started doing this uh tires like no one cared about safety. safety is not a real thing. There was no training. You know, they had to build everything themselves. And when he got involved with TIA, um
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you know, he really fell in love with with um I think it was the ND before that um probably got that acronym wrong, but he fell in love with a lot of the team at TIA. Um and he for the very for the ETSs, we donated all of our procedures and training that
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we developed in Australia to make that happen. So he said, "All right, like just take all of this and uh use it to get where you're going." And they combined it with everything they were working on. That's what became the ETS 200 and 300 programs. Um but the safety
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tips was something he really wanted to hit home. So he started doing it for free at first and um now it's a sponsored activity that we do, so we kick in for it. >> So we sort of made a rod for our back there. >> Um but one of the ones I'm doing is uh
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close to my heart. So, I have two kids now, two under two, which I don't recommend to anyone. Talking about safety tips. My goodness. And um so my wife is doing everything by herself right now, and I love her for it. Um but my dad, who was a tire fitter from 15 years old,
55:51
my first safety tip is when he holds my kids, his grandkids, I can see him counting in his head. So, I can see him, you know, sort of mentally counting off and he's counting. I don't think he realizes he's that he looks this way, but he's trying to see how
56:11
long he can hold that kid for because his back is destroyed. >> So, his his his back, he says health is wealth all the time. And he's right. So, his back is so bad now as a 74 year old that he might count to eight before he needs to put his grandkids down. So he
56:31
can't he can't hold them. He can't play with them in the way that he would want. And that's a decision that you know 16 and 20 year old Tom made for 70-year-old Tom without ever knowing it is he limited this 20-year-old limited his ability to interact with his grandkids
56:52
um my kids severely. So that's very powerful. But what's even better is nobody out there today should ever be in that position because TIA has training. They have te tech tips online. Uh there's podcasts like this where people talk about safety all the time.
57:11
There's rules and regulations. There's YouTube clips. Like there is so much information out there that says take care of yourself. Do things correctly. Uh do you know beg and kick and scream for training if you're not getting it. Get the right tools. Don't rush jobs.
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all of these things that no one should end up in that situation like and and if you have people who do then you know shame on you. You know if you if if you're letting people if you're treating people like a forklift and you just expect them to to bend and do what you
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you need to do then that's what you could be enabling. You could be enabling them to never be able to like roll around on the floor with their grandkids. It's horrible. >> Yeah. >> So there's day one safety tip without a slideshow. >> It It's a powerful one. And it's it's
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one I hope we can get to young tire techs today or even those that that are that are still, you know, uh still starting to feel the pain. >> Um we talk to techs all the time at early 50s that hey, I don't I want to look at getting out of a truck. >> Yeah.
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>> Um and it's because they're starting to feel that way. Haven't haven't don't have the physicality for it. Haven't taken care of themselves. Um and that's huge. I mean that's that's a career path that hey they were planning on this and their body is saying no it's going to go
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to about here. >> Yeah. It's uh I think my dad had his first spinal surgery in the 70s. So it's come a long way since then. >> Yeah. But you know like so it's not as if he never did anything either. like he tried to repair it, but he went back to the tools and and did things and and
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that's why he's such he was such an annoying safety guy because he was like, I'm feeling it right now. Like that's like I'm I'm I'm in pain right now from this. >> Um so he he really pushes that and it's good because I don't think the industry would be the same without somebody
59:05
>> fanatically pushing that stuff. So I'm going to ask you something uh that I'm going to preface. We all live in our different tire bubbles, right? Or different in some cases mining bubbles, but mining's mining's global and there's a lot of groups and communities and discussion. But
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>> I I talked to Trevor in the UK, talked to people in Australia, talked to people in uh Africa, South America, United States, and everybody's in their own bubbles. Um, but you what's unique about Clling to me is you guys see the whole global perspective of tires and safety
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related to tires. Um, where where do you see this industry going over the next couple years? What do we are we going to be talking about the same things in 10 years? Do you see things changing immediately? Are we on a a slow progression? What predict the future for our audience here?
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>> Yeah. Wow. It's a tough one. I think um there are people and companies who definitely see uh uh see and are closer to this more than more than us. I'll say that first. So we're in our own bubble and so are they. But um you know there there are some
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companies that truly are global service providers and they do an amazing job and they're at the coldface as you would say every single day doing this stuff. And I think when you have when you're servicing I I'll say this I guess the more the mining industry my particular d
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bubble gets smaller. So big mining companies buy small mining companies. Big mining companies have much bigger profiles. Yeah. They they have much bigger social licenses. They they understand how things really should be everywhere. And they really should be
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and they do carry that with them everywhere they go. And I think if you're going to work with them, you'll get brought up to speed. So if you're going to work with the Riot Tinser or BHP, then they're going to expect that you just know how things should be. So I
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think more globalization of of the industry will will result in people who service them at for whatever tires or anything having to uh essentially adhere to their standards. But also AI um and I've I've done safety tips at TIA in the past. This has really changed the game.
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Like I asked AI how to fit a tire, how to fit an otr tire and it started telling me whether it was right. I can definitely tell you it wasn't. But uh >> but it's getting better. >> It's getting better rapidly. >> But but and this is what I was trying to say is like you know if if
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>> we we were otr especially is a real niche within a niche industry. Yeah. >> But it's going to come for you. Um and you need to harness it. You need to utilize it. You need to get used to it. Um, so I'm I think for the tire industry, hopefully transparency will will lead to people
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being held accountable, companies being held accountable for poor safety decisions or uh decisions not to try and mitigate things, I guess. But also the fact that everything is more out in the open means that they should have more resources. Like you had
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Trevor on and, you know, he shares everything that he learns. So hopefully everyone even if they're in, you know, Guatemala or Timbuktu, can look that up and say, "Well, maybe I can learn from this." >> Um, I think that's the key. I hope we aren't talking about fatalities in 10
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years time and things like that. I think >> if you've ever done this job and you manage to go home at the end of the day after a massive day without a black fingernail or a cut, >> then it's possible that it's a zero harm job. Yeah, >> it's completely possible because you've done it.
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>> What what you're inferring is uh open-source industry >> to a degree to a degree, right? You have more consolidation. Big mining companies do better, publish what they're doing. >> Um AI helps transfer that knowledge everywhere. >> Um and you don't have a tire guy in
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anywhere in the world that doesn't have access to this is a safer way to do things. Yeah, it would be it would be um you know like many things I know there are apps out there that have every you know psychology paper available and it's been trained by psychologists and you
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can use that to >> uh help work out why your kid is upset in the mornings and all of this kind of thing. Yeah, >> be great if there was something out there for tires like that, you know, and uh I'm sure there is for for for smaller stuff, but maybe for all of that
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knowledge is bottled up in some very wise old heads. And um >> that could be Cling's next chapter. >> Yeah, maybe. Maybe it could. >> So, we asked something on this show. Uh your BDE, your big dog energy. Um you had a choice to be in this industry. What was a moment where you felt like
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this is what I want to continue doing. this is what I'm going to be passionate about. This is where I want to spend my life as my kids are growing up at home. >> Yeah. Doesn't have to be one moment, but maybe a moment where you went, "Wow, this is cool."
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>> Yeah. I think it's um it's something we we coach people on who transition from uh and I I didn't have to experience this but to transition from commercial into mining or ITR work is uh it's not about how many things you can get done it's about what you can get done in you
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know similar amount of time so you know rush jobs and things like that for me the moment was realizing it was an engineer was at Ernest Henry one of the Kamatsu engineers And there was a tire shortage. So when I started it was the tail end of the tire shortage. >> Which one?
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>> Oh um uh early teens. I'm um when would it have have been? Maybe >> 2005 through 2008 or 2011 through >> probably 2011 or something. And you know um he tried to quantify the impact that tires were having on the stock price of this company. You know the production
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impact that we were having because we were pulling up trucks and >> you know trying and and putting runout tires that could hold air on trucks and pulling the good tires off. like it was uh people in the world were digging them up and and I I realized at that point
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that this tiny niche within this mine like controls so much like everyone really relied on us like if your tires aren't working properly on a mine it can things it can really them which is which is just magic you know we have people in our company who could do
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anything um and and I think a lot of by companies like this. Yeah, people in your company go off and make money and do great things. Um, but they really get rubber in their blood and they choose to do it. Um, I may have grown up in a tire shop and had a lot of those uh formative
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experiences and a lot of dinnertime discussion about the business and things, but realizing in that moment that when I was I was working, not alone, but I was the the you know, the tire service guy on on the on the floor and I had one other person that me and
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this person controlled whether that mind was going to be profitable as profitable as they could for a period of time. like if we didn't do our job properly that that other people would be impacted. It was really cool. And you've got one of the biggest machines ever made that you
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can fix. No one else in this whole mind can fix it but you. >> Yeah. >> It's powerful. You know it's a this thing is giant. It's bigger than your house. >> Yeah. >> It's incredible. >> Very cool. >> Yeah. >> What else? Al did it. >> Yeah. I can tell you um anyone who
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worked with me will tell you that I wasn't uh I definitely wasn't the best tire fitter, but I was fun to work with. Um and I hope they would say I was hardworking, but I miss it. I really really miss it cuz there is nothing like taking uh a machine like that and uh you know
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enforcing your will upon it because it is such a physical job still. >> Yeah. you know, uh, fitting a 57 or a 63 inch lock ring is like something out of a Hercules movie, you know, like it's it's incredible. It's really cool. Um, you know, you drive these machines that
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are like Transformers. They throw around, you know, four tons of rubber and steel and uh like it's nothing. You feel like Superman. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I often say, and I stole this from Dave Chappelle, the comedian, um, which I'm happy to do, the TIA OTR conference in particular,
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>> yeah, >> we could all get that done in a couple of teams calls. Really, it doesn't really I think, you know, it the we could all put on an e- lecture and webinars and stuff like that. But the reason we all get together is the same reason that the Justice League gets
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together. So, Justice League or the Avengers at Avengers Tower, >> they don't need to live together, but superheroes want to hang out with other superheroes. >> Yeah, >> TIG ot guys are especially like that. They want to hang out with other superheroes, other people who've been
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there, done that. >> Yeah, it's really cool. >> Yeah, that's a good analogy. >> Yeah. Well, thank plus pump the egos and have a few drinks. >> Oh, yeah. Well, that's what it's all about. >> Yeah. >> Like that's what it's all about. Yeah. Well, I wish you the best of luck on
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your speech next week. Um, you've been great for the industry. We hope you stay in it as long as you want to. >> Cheers. Thanks very much. I appreciate uh the invitation and have me on. >> Thanks, mate. >> Cheers. Around the bead podcast, tire talk for trucking, mining,
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agriculture, and more. Your home for fleet solutions. Aiming to inform, pioneer, and entertain the tire world in connected industries. Sponsored by East Bay Tire, keeping essential industries moving forward.
