One Man's Commitment to Safety, Schrader's Commitment to TIA

Author - W RippetoeI want you to understand that when you are driving down the road in your car, truck or motorcycle, you are riding on a little pocket of air. Your tires are the only part of the car that has direct contact with the road. For the best and safest ride quality, your vehicle handling, and brake performance, as well as correct air pressure, tread depth, the balance of the wheels, and proper alignment is necessary. Depending on the size of your tire, that little pocket of air could be as small as 1 inch and is all that is keeping you from riding on the tarmac. Impressive, right? This is why TPMS is so important. TPMS is a highly technical product and requires continued educations for service professionals.

Schrader is a huge advocate for industry training and our internal team is no exception. At Schrader, we are required to complete the TIA course within our first year on the job and maintain that certification every two years. Being TIA Certified Instructors helps us all ensure the safest TPMS service practices and it gives us a better understanding of the wheel and tire segment. This helps us take our customer support and communications to a whole different level! As a TIA ATS Certified Advanced Instructor, I have personally conducted trainings for most of our staff, including marketing, pricing, sales, and even general managers. Furthermore, we recently took this effort globally and traveled to Germany to train our European team!

This requirement started in 2007, when Matt White, the Director of Tire Service for TIA came to our office in Rochester Hills, Michigan, and first introduced us to the TIA ATS class. The 4-day training was an eye-opening experience that took us to a higher level of knowledge in the wheel and tire segment. It was quite a challenge at first for our sales team, since most of them have never mounted, dismounted or repaired a tire. They might not need to do this on daily basis, but now they at least have a much better understanding of what is involved in the entire process of a tire and wheel service, allowing them to better serve and relate to our customers.

Since then, TIA has worked with us and has continued improving the TPMS portion of the course. We spent a lot of time working with TIA, wrestling with what should be considered best practices. Schrader and TIA continue to work very closely together, starting from the data that is in their TIA flip chart to new sensors that Schrader launches. Schrader’s cooperation with TIA is to ensure that service professionals have the necessary information to perform their job safely and accurately. Thanks to TIA, I am proud to say that we have the most robust processes for mounting and dismounting a tire with a TPMS sensor in place!

I firmly believe that knowledge of this industry and the technology behind it is incredibly important in every level of business and that customers appreciate that level of knowledge and expertise. I would encourage anyone in the tire and wheel industry to consider TIA Training and the many free resources Schrader offers specifically for TPMS training.

Watch W’s blog video.

12/10/2018