Page 14 - CTB n4 - 2013/4

COMPANY NEWS
Luke Stonier
Inside TRS casing yard
TRS: Complete Casing Solutions
Luke’s father, is a family business also involving his brother Nicholas. Between them, the family have over 100 years of experience within the truck tyre industry.
Although Luke Stonier freely admits that TRS have not traditionally been the most visible company in the marketplace due to lack of self- promotion, the company does suggest they may well be the biggest casing dealer in the UK, handling between 1,000 and 2,000 truck casings ever y working day at the company’s three sites.
Employing over thirty people, TRS operates from a seven acre site in Morecambe and can service the whole of Great Britain and Northern Ireland through the company’s fleet of eight rigids, twelve trailers and four service vans. The company also has a comprehensive major repair facility but limits new tyre sales to avoid alienating the tyre manufacturing and dealer partners with whom the company works. Having developed over 80 markets internationally during the past 40 years, TRS are able to utilise and
specific requirements. Due to the efficiencies achieved in collection, examination, reporting and payment and the subsequent increase in volume, Stonier is optimistic regarding the future growth potential.
“When we receive casings we have no visibility with regards to wear rates and service pressures. However, we can give reports on ever ything else to fit in with customer requirements – the regroove percentage, remaining tread depth, information on service work such as whether the tyre has been turned or not, fitting damage, complaint tyres etc. We can also recover repairable tyres and give feedback on the misapplication of patterns. We also tr y to leverage our logistics service, which we like to think we run ver y efficiently.”
“We work closely with the EA and are involved in all aspects of used tyre treatment,” he adds. “Including reuse through our repair facility and recycling through our involvement in the retread market. Both these solutions sit near the top in the
Luke Stonier, the managing director of TRS Tyres Ltd, suggests that many fleet operators still regard their used truck tyre casings as
service, offering fleet managers the opportunity to maximise the potential revenue from their used tyres. The company, founded by
waste.
“The value of a casing and the revenue that can be derived from it is typically equivalent to 10% of the cost of the tyre,” says Stonier. “It is astounding in today’s cost- conscious age that there are fleets – some of them large, who have never received this casing revenue. There are obvious benefits in managing casings properly. It is a legitimate source of revenue, whilst being entirely environmentally sound and responsible.
When fleet managers deal with used tyres, they have to make a decision,” he adds. “Are casings assets which can be processed down the correct environmental pathway for which the manager can generate income – or are they waste, also requiring a responsible environmental solution which currently involves substantial costs?”
What TRS do is offer fleets a complete casing management
14 Commercial Tyre Business
thus purchase a ver y broad spectrum of tyre types and grades in order to satisfy these customers’ demands.
Says Luke Stonier; “We sell casings to overseas markets in the Middle East and all over Africa. Many of these tyres are destined for re-use but encouragingly, there is also an increase in demand for casings for retreading in those markets. It’s our job to increase casing intake so we can maintain these markets.”
TRS offer a comprehensive casing management service throughout the UK which can be tailored to meet
waste hierarchy, above disposal and shredding. ”
However, understanding that there are only a finite number of casings available in the UK, Stonier is continually exploring potential new markets and paths for the reuse of the more difficult grades of casings.