Vehicle uptime has been an area that truck manufacturers have applied increased focus on in recent years, and that is no exception with Navistar. Joe Kory, senior vice president of parts, updated media on the company’s private label parts brands and expansion plans for its Fleetrite brand store.
“Navistar has made it a mission to be the market leader in uptime,” Kory said. The company’s OnCommand Connection diagnostics platform is a critical component of that uptime. Kory said there are now 400,000 vehicles with OnCommand installed. Once a vehicle is routed to a dealer for service, Kory said the goal remains to get that vehicle evaluated within two hours.
On the broader fight against downtime, Kory noted that Navistar has recently opened its second FleetRite store, this one in Florida. The company also has a store in Texas and is planning to add more of the retail locations during the course of this year, although Kory declined at this time to reveal where those locations will be.
“These are small retail stores,” he told FreightWaves. “They usually carry less than 1,000 parts, they fast-moving parts and are [designed] for short-order delivery.”
Kory noted that the concept of the stores is to provide the Fleetrite brand of all-makes parts to customers and independent repair shops quickly to ensure truckers can get their vehicles up and running with minimal delay. “We really think this is an opportunity for growth,” he added.
The Fleetrite line of parts is now available for 24 makes and models covering 80% of all commercial vehicles on the road today. There are 80 different product lines with the most recent being radiators and a surge tank program, both of which launched last week. Injectors, LED lighting and HVAC are among the new products planned for 2018.
The ReNEWed product line, which is the company’s private label brand, has undergone a makeover for 2018 with a new logo and new investments with expanded electronic control components expected this year.
Kory pointed to some of the benefits the ReNEWed brand brings to the company, starting with Navistar’s experience. “We understand the demand customers put on their vehicles,” he said.
With that knowledge, Navistar relies on a dealer support network of over 700 locations “that gives us the ability to stand behind our brand,” Kory noted. “ReNEW leverages the knowledge we gain supporting our new truck customers so we can build parts that [meet the latest specs],” he added.
Combined, the ReNEWed and Fleetrite brands have seen double-digit growth for the last five years and sales now make up 20% of Navistar’s parts business, Kory noted.
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