The tire sensor initiative is one of the projects I am most proud of. As part of ExxonMobil Chemical Innovation Hub, through interviews with senior leadership, one of the key pain points identified is that although ExxonMobil has a strong relationship with Tire Manufacturers across the globe with the Butyl offer, a product required for Tire Manufacturement, there was still a needed to strenghten the relationship with important clients, such as Goodyear, Bridgestone.

Such problem to be solved increased our curiosity on how much drivers consider their tire health for the safety of their families, as well as for fuel saving. We wanted to lear more about consumers behaviors, as well as explore the opportunity to explore potential new business models and revenue streams.

After many interviews, and with the premise that tire manufactures want to increase their sales, we came with the following problems hypotheses to be explored:

• - Drivers would be willing to buy new tires if they knew there was a need
• - Tire manufactures are interested about their supply chain needs across the globe
• - A platform connecting driver's needs could be the opportunity ExxonMobil Chemical could approach Tire Manufacturers
• - Passenger vehicles represent a good way to explore the business model with initial low investment
• - Heavy duty represent the bigger opportunity

We decided to pursue two approaches, testing the viability of a business model called 'flow-through marketing', installing a tire reader on a gas station and providing vouchers with local tire dealers for drivers willing to experiment on our prototype. The reader could measure the tire wear, pressure, license plate, and read the tire's DOT, which is a code that represent the tire family.

Tire manufacturers were also called to inspect the product first hand and the experimentation was a huge success. From a technical standpoint, while the tire reader was scanning the vehicle, it was generating a JSON file to our servers. A Python script was consuming the data and populating an embelished website, fully built with React.

Drivers creating user accounts to the front end, informing their make, model, and mileage would be granted vouchers with discounts and our data engineering team would start to have something very important moving forward: The driver's behavior!

Some challenges emerged during the implementation, including the fact that ExxonMobil is not a product manufacturer and we would need to pursue partnerships to turn this business model into a reality. Still, we were just scratching the tip of the iceberg when exploring the business model, and as with all innovations, there was a need to turn this solution into revenue. I might add that was the case during the pandemic as well.

Apart from the IoT (Internet of Things) concept with the Tire Reader, having information across the globe around drivers behaviors, their type of vehicles, and the tire families, in conjunction with weather in respective cities would allow us to understand data needs and provide such information to our key clients, the tire manufacturers. Our ambitions were to create RESTful APIs to feed this information and then, apply predictive analytics and machine learning to help tire manufacturers with their logistics. This initiative did not only achieve our so desired goals to strenghten the relationship with tire manufacturers, but also planted the seed to carve out new revenue streams through innovation.

I am really proud for being the Innovation Project Manager for the Tire Sensor initiative. It helped me gauge my understanding around executives' expectations when it comes to the creation of new business model and revenue streams.

While I could talk much more about Tire Sensor, this is probably better over a cup of coffee. Shall we have one?