Buying for Fitness of Purpose

When Butler Industrial Tire started 28 years ago, we dedicated our sales philosophy to provide only the best products we could find in the industrial tire and wheel market. We did this because we felt it better to solve our customers’ problems and service their needs than to just have the best bottom line on an invoice. After all, the price of the tires are actually calculated when you take them off.

To provide a case in point, we recently removed some tires and a wheel from a newer customer that shows the issues that can arise from buying based on the bottom line as opposed to buying for fitness of purpose.

In the first picture we see a tire that has had the base of the tire torn out by the “modification” to the wheel it was mounted on. The tire that was installed has what we call a crack friction base, which is a fabric/rubber mixture. It is inexpensive to produce but not very useful in an abusive or high usage application. As a result of having these tires installed, the tire slipped on the wheel which can have safety implications in the long run as the wheel/tire interface becomes compromised. You can apply the brakes but the lift keeps rolling forward slightly.

In the next two pictures we see the “modifications” that the customer did to the wheel so that the remaining life of the tires could be used. This is one of the most extreme cases we’ve seen, though similar to other efforts to combat tire slippage. The modifications include welding the lock and flange ring to the wheel to keep them in place; there are 4″ long bolts screwed and welded through the rim base into the tire and a steel cable attached to a welded fixture on the wheel, though we’re not too sure why that is there. It’s interesting to note that, even with these modifications, the tire continued to slip back and forth, eventually digging a channel all the way around the inside of the tire. It was at this point that we received the call to come help.

We did a thorough survey of the work environment, asked about how the forklift was used, how often the forklift was used, and other important questions to determine the best tires for the application. We do this for all our customers since one size does not fit all. In this customer’s application, we installed tires and provided a new wheel that will stand up to the rigors they will be put through and will provide 100% of the useful life that should be expected.