Kelly Boor, general manager of Sensata Technologies Inc.’s global aftermarket business, which includes Schrader-brand tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) sensors, discusses how new technology will impact the aftermarket.Sensata is a $3.5 billion/year global industrial technology company providing sensing solutions and electrical protection for the automotive, heavy-duty, off-road, industrial and aerospace markets.
What is Schrader working on now and what technologies is it focusing on?
We (OE business) are facing significant discontinuities driven by mega-trends, electrification, safety advancements/autonomy as well as a more digital world. Those trends are impacting all of our end-markets — auto, heavy-duty, industrial, aerospace — in different ways and each of those trends require sensing solutions as part of the overall response to those trend-driven requirements. …
As vehicles become more electrified, Sensata has invested in developing a portfolio of sensing solutions that meet these technology requirements. It is a similar story with TPMS. Sensata has a portfolio of sensors used in safety applications and has expanded that portfolio (through the Schrader acquisition) to include TPMS. In addition, we have further developed TPMS to address needs beyond auto — i.e. HVOR (heavy vehicle, off road) and the aftermarket.
Tire-pressure-sensing solutions will continue to play a pretty important role in advancing safety, mobility and even energy efficiency and fuel economy. In the case of the heavy-vehicle segment, this segment really does care about total cost of ownership. We think that TPMS can play a role in that. It does now and it will continue even more so in the future. …
We have market-leading OE positions as well as a strong presence in the aftermarket. That is a great value that Sensata/Schrader brings to the aftermarket — that we have a link to the OE. It gives us a greater insight into what’s coming down the pipeline in terms of products and customer needs that the aftermarket will need to address at some point in the future.
Is there more development to come for the TPMS component?
Yes, there will be advancements in the technology itself. We think that the socket has an important role in advancing some of the safety-mobility applications within automotive and even in other end-markets, as well. I do think that there are continued developments, enhancements and more features and data insight that we will be able to give to tire pressure sensing solutions in the future.
Are all these TPMS-sensing capabilities leading to use in autonomous vehicles?
In the case of TPMS, it would continue to play a key role in advancements in safety and mobility as well as continue to have positive benefits towards fuel economy.
Are there other technologies/components you are working on with tire manufacturers?
We are always working on new technology that requires information from the road to the vehicle’s systems. That requires not only our own development but also strong partnerships to provide the right solution for our customers. As our sensors grow smarter, we learn that we can measure different things around the tire and provide that information in real-time. We are working to make that information not only available to the vehicle, but through our Smart & Connected initiative, to make it available on the cloud.
How will new technology/components impact the auto repair industry?
I think if I were to take a step back and look at the history of Schrader in the aftermarket, Schrader was the first to market with the EZ sensor. It was the first single SKU programmable sensor that really made it easy, as its name implies, for our customers to service tires and TPMS.
The customer also benefits from SKU reduction and associated inventory costs. It was a pretty interesting innovation where we were able to really draw upon our experience on the OE side, where we were already the market leader for tire-pressure sensing for the automotive space, and marry that with the needs of the aftermarket customer.
This really goes back to the benefit of Sensata’s market-leading positions in OE on our aftermarket developments. It really means that you are in the conversation with your OE customers as to what features they are incorporating into their specifications in their vehicles and our ability to access that road map and that understanding, because we are all part of the same company.
It really is an advantage for us and is different than some of our pure aftermarket competitors. We’re always looking at what is planned for the OE, what is on our OE team’s roadmap and ensuring that we’re incorporating the OE design and enhancing it because we have the insight into what the aftermarket customer actually needs. Our aftermarket customers value that visibility so that they can better prepare themselves and their businesses to support the customer of the future.
We see a general trend in connectivity and data, and we believe that will also hit the aftermarket, more specifically the tire. Everything around the tire is being designed to provide electronic data, either through RFID tags, TPMS sensors or both. More recently, some vehicles were released with a feature called "Tire Fill Alert," where the TPMS sensor detects that the tire is being filled and the vehicle gives an alert when the recommended pressure is reached. That certainly helps against pressure stations that do not have accurate gauges from incorrect inflation.
Some TPMS sensors are also holding information about the tire, such as speed rating, size, etc., allowing the vehicle to make a better decision on safety, comfort and others, knowing exactly which tires are mounted.
Will new automotive technology, designed to solve problems, create new ones?
Despite our best efforts, there are growing pains and issues we didn’t foresee at the beginning. It’s a natural part of developing new technologies, but managed correctly, can become opportunities.
When TPMS was introduced, a portion of the market saw it as an issue for garages, rather than a value. But, with customize solutions for the aftermarket, like the EZ-sensor, those garages are able to convert this into a better service to their customers, generating more revenue to them.
If you look at TPMS, not only do we have a skilled technical team that is working on R&D and the product development, we also have a skilled technical services and training team. These folks are literally out with the shop owners, they’re out visiting customers and really capturing their voices.
At the user level, we see the impact of the products that we provide and saying, "Is this really easy to install?" or "Are the instructions clear?" I think down to that level, when we’re having issues, you’re able to feed that back into the product development team as part of the development cycle and you hope you are able to do that on a real-time basis and address more concerns that way or more potential issues that could arise later.
In the case where we have some bumps in the road, something I think we do really well is making sure that we are working with our customers. If the issue impacts a customer, we are there to support them and quickly find the root cause, diagnose the problem and resolve it.
So would you say it behooves suppliers to provide training as technology becomes more complex?
I do think that will continue to be an important part of the aftermarket. … The aftermarket winners are those that are going to be able to take fairly complicated systems and really do a great job of training and/or enhancing the offering or the product to make it easier for our aftermarket customers to service those vehicles. Training is one of those elements and there are different ways you can do that. You can be live and there at the shop, which is kind of hard to do for every one of your customers, but I certainly think digital and other ways of providing that type of service and information will also become even more important in the future as well.
How should auto repair shops prepare their businesses for upcoming technology?
You’ve got time to see how it shakes out on the OE side of things. But again, I think partnering with an aftermarket solutions provider that has both an OE presence as well as an aftermarket presence is really valuable in that case.
Engage — the aftermarket associations are great avenues to gather insight; have robust discussions and a channel for that voice to be heard by customers, suppliers and regulatory bodies; networking; and learning.
Source: The TPMS Forum