With more than a decade-long partnership with Continental Tyres, Cemex, multinational building materials company, is impressed by the brand’s holistic approach to tyres.
The Road to Success
Established in 1906, Cemex has been producing ready-mixed concrete and building and construction materials, including asphalt, mortar and screeds. With more than 80 years of service in the UK construction industry, the company has been demonstrating its commitment to innovation and sustainability.
Around the UK, the company’s 2,200-strong workforce manages 22 quarries and 138 mixing plants, including a cement fleet of 54 vehicles and 72 tanks, an aggregate fleet containing more than 120 tipper transporters and 26 trailers, as well as a fleet of modern vessels supplying marine aggregates. Cemex and Continental partnership began in 2011, when the company integrated Bandvulc into its operations, becoming one of the first companies to utilise Continental’s range of digital solutions.
Today, Continental is the exclusive tyre solution provider for Cemex in the UK, providing a mix of new and retread tyres fitted across the fleet. Additionally, every vehicle in its aggregates and cement fleet uses Continental’s tyre pressure monitoring system, ContiPressureCheck.
Carl Milton, Cement Logistics Manager, UK at Cemex, explains: “Just like many other fleet operations, vehicle downtime was initially the biggest hurdle for us to overcome – much of this time lost was caused by issues relating to tyres. At Cemex, we put health and safety at the forefront of everything we do and as well as enhancing vehicle safety and reducing downtime, our partnership with Continental has also significantly improved our fleet’s efficiency. Continental’s digital solutions have been game-changing for Cemex. Ever since we implemented them across our fleet, we quickly realised a significant reduction in out-of-hours callouts, and the number of blowouts has reduced to as little as one or two a year.”
Drivers’ Experience
Besides Carl, drivers and tyre providers alike also appreciate the intuitiveness of Continental’s digital solutions. The systems encourage predictive maintenance and enable workflow optimisation where it matters the most. Cemex uses real-time in-cab displays, as well as the web-based ContiConnect digital tyre management platform for remote vehicle monitoring. Additionally, the company has four yard readers, which record data as trucks cross the detection device.
“The email alerts we receive from the ContiConnect platform take things one step further – it doesn’t just inform the transport team of issues as they arise, but it also helps tyre providers to prepare in advance, ” said Nigel Ponton, UK Fleet Engineering Manager at Cemex. “As well as monitoring deflation, it also analyses heat transfer – allowing drivers to see exactly when brake defects and wheel bearing failures are imminent, so that problems can be dealt with in real-time.”
“We have an outstanding relationship with Continental, just as you’d expect from the length of time we’ve worked with them”, says Carl. “Over the years, we’ve collaborated closely to optimise our tyres for the unique environments we operate in, so that we can achieve the best possible fuel economy on every journey. Our working relationship is so strong that we are often invited to trial new test sets of tyres. Not only does this allow us to see where improvements can be made to our operations, but our feedback also goes a long way in helping Continental to develop and refine its own product range.”
“For a long time, we were stuck in a cycle of contracts that couldn’t deliver the quality of products and services that we were promised. We broke that cycle with Continental. We entered into an open-book relationship with the brand, and ever since, the benefits just keep coming. From lowering our overall driving costs to enhancing the durability and performance of our vehicles, the results are clear,” Carl explains.
“Crucially, though, our relationship with Continental over the years has helped us to focus on health and safety in our sector, and we take our efforts in this area extremely seriously. The ability to exchange our knowledge of best practices has been instrumental in helping to minimise the number of road safety-related issues experienced each year.”
Speaking of Continental’s collaboration with Cemex, Pina Wallace, Account Manager at Continental, said: “It continues to be a pleasure to work with the Cemex team, and we’re so pleased to see that our products and services have helped to maximise fleet efficiency and safety in all areas of their operation. Over the years, not only has our collaborative approach allowed us to tailor our products to meet the unique demands of their operations, but their feedback has also been invaluable when it comes to developing our own product offerings. It’s the perfect example of how a cooperative relationship can lead to mutual success.”
