Navistar leverages integrated technology

Navistar leverages integrated technology, increases customer satisfaction

Bill Kozek Navistar
Bill Kozek, president of Navistar’s North America truck and parts business

Navistar has been continuing to work on integrating vehicle technology to help its customers deal with the demands of government mandates—and handle the other issues related to delivering freight in today’s competitive climate.

According to Bill Kozek, president of Navistar’s North America truck and parts business, “We are thinking harder and working more collaboratively with suppliers and customers concerning the role of new technologies that can be utilized to help customers every day to deliver industry-leading vehicle uptime.”

Kozek pointed to Navistar’s OnCommand Connection offering, which provides its customers with real time maintenance solutions to their maintenance needs and takes it much further.

“We want to turn traditional diagnostics into prognostics that anticipate and prevent problems,” he explained. “The goal is to move unplanned downtime into scheduled maintenance in real time. After using our remote diagnostics for six months, one of our fleet customers experienced a 28% reduction in down days and a 31% reduction in repairs, equating to $2,000 a day in savings. And, we are only scraping the surface of the capabilities we can offer as we continue to evolve our OnCommand Connection offering.”

Kozek goes on to say that in addition to minimizing unscheduled downtime, OnCommand is a non-proprietary system that customers can use with their current telematics providers, allowing customers to leverage OnCommand Connection for all their trucks, not just International. Our diagnostics portal helps tie together the whole system, the shops, the dispatch and the driver, seamlessly.

“Customers also have to deal with hours-of-service [HOS] and compliance, safety, accountability [CSA] mandates, and we can help them by integrating technologies into the original equipment so the customer doesn’t have to modify sub-systems of our trucks,” Kozek notes. “We offer integrated solutions versus having to add things to enhance the customer experience.”

Fuel economy is king

When it comes to helping fleets get the best return on their investments in equipment, Navistar trucks provide several solutions. Kozek states, “Fuel economy is king, which means our customers need to spec their vehicles for their application and we are here to work with them, as well as our suppliers, to improve on those set of components and deliver a better return for our customers. There are four areas we are working on for our customers: Uptime; lighter weight components; fuel economy; and driver focused solutions. Lighter weight components will provide our customers with more payload and driver focused solutions create ease of operation. We offer our customers a cab that is purpose-built, with best-in-class visibility, aerodynamics and easy to navigate interior components.”

Navistar DuraStar

Kozek talks about how the Navistar DuraStar fits its niche application:

“The DuraStar is a daily truck to do your job, with a wide cab and great visibility offering ease of operation. And, whatever you need, we have a solution for you. The DuraStar has a wide range of applications, with more configurations than our competitors. This vehicle also comes standard with Diamond Logic, which eases body and component integration and helps medium-duty and vocational operations work smarter, faster and safer, while also preventing drivers from inadvertently damaging valuable equipment. Diamond Logic offers nearly 200 factory-available body integration and driver efficiency features, plus the ability to customize infinitely more vehicle functions.”

Kozek adds, “Ultimately, we want our customers to have choices and also experience the highest level of uptime in the industry. All our International trucks are supported by more than 750 dealer locations and the best after-sales support in the industry. We continue to work with our suppliers to further expand our wide range of applications and provide our customers with more choices.”

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