In 2015, the heavy duty truck market was at "peak inventory," said Mack Trucks President Dennis Slagle. But, now, inventory levels are reduced and back to "safe levels" across the board.
Factories are now able to manufacture trucks based on demand rather than producing less in hopes of reducing inventory overall, especially for on-highway Class 8 trucks which made up almost all of the inventory problems.
Mack Trucks, for example, is expected to see about 215,000 units sold in 2017. Although this number down from last year's total, Slangle says it reflects a "true" and "healthy" market condition.
"We are doing what we have to do to keep inventory down," Slangle said. "That was a messier market."
In 2016, however, Mack grew shares in both the on-highway and vocational market segments, and the company and market remain in "strong tail winds," said Jonathan Randall, Mack's senior vice president of sales.
The growth could be in part to the adoption of Mack's mDrive automated mechanical transmission, which is being spec'd in nearly all (80 percent) of Mack Truck's Pinnacle models, said Roy Horton, Mack's director of product strategy.
Furthermore, if other factors in the industry, like retaining drivers, were in a better place overall, the demand could be even stronger, John Walsh, vice president of global marketing and brand management, suggested.
"We hear all the time... 'I would buy more trucks from you if I had more drivers," Walsh said.
Uptime and Measurable Downtime
Mack's Slagle notes that the shift in market demand and inventory also came with a shift in focus from the OEM. Previously OEMs seemed to be almost entirely focused on fuel economy and cost of operations. However, he said, in recent years there has been a push to continue a greater focus on managing uptime for the customers across the entire truck lifecycle.
With a focus on uptime, Mack Trucks' telematics program, GuardDog Connect, has been able to reduce downtime by monitoring and streamlining service on over 55,000 trucks, said Mack's Randal.
"We can now measure it [downtime], and what you can measure you can manage," Slangle said
Randalls said the average downtime for a truck has been reduced by days in the 91 certifies uptime centers across the U.S.
