Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/716013
28 commercial carrier journal | august 2016 • Hino Trucks held a ceremony at its plant in William- stown, W.Va., to commemorate production of its 50,000th truck, a 2017 model 268A. Yoshinori Noguchi, Hino chairman, said the milestone caps a record growth period in which the company has seen a 30 percent increase in two years. • Detroit marked the 200,000th installation of its Detroit Connect Virtual Technician integrated remote diagnostics system hardware. The unit was installed on a Freightliner Cascadia Evolution truck equipped with a Detroit DD15 engine delivered to Penske Truck Leasing Co. • Kenworth's 116.5-inch BBC T880 short hood now is available with Allison's 7-speed 4700 Rugged Duty Series fully automatic transmission engineered to allow drivers to creep slowly and perform other low-speed maneuvers. The 4700 RDS is available with either the Paccar MX-13 engine or the MX-11 that provides a 400-pound weight savings. • Kenworth's T680 76-inch sleepers now are available with a factory-installed in-cab satellite TV pre-wire option to support EpicVue's subscription service. • Kenworth's assembly plant in Chillicothe, Ohio, was honored with the 2016 American Electric Power Ohio Energy Efficiency Award that recognizes AEP Ohio's business customers and partners who demonstrate a strong commitment to energy efficiency. • Mack Trucks was honored by the Environmental Research & Education Foundation for supporting the organization's research for sustainable waste manage- ment practices. Mack contributed three chassis models to EREF's Annual Charitable Auction, with truck bodies provided by waste management equipment manu- facturers: a Granite Axle Back with a Galbreath hoist, a LR model with a Heil Odyssey HPF front loader and a TerraPro Cabover with a McNeilus front loader. • Wabash National awarded 20 recent high school graduates with scholarships that, combined, represent a total award of $75,000. The trailer manufacturer ad- ministered two scholarship programs for the 2016-17 academic year: one for Wabash National associates, and another for the company's supplier partners. • The Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association's 2015 Plant Safety Contest recognized Great Dane's facility in Huntsville, Tenn., in the midsize plant category for the second consecutive year. The Huntsville facility employs more than 200 engineers, welders and sup- port personnel who logged more than 1 million hours without a lost-time accident in 2015. • Utility Trailer Manufacturing Co.'s plant in Clear- field, Utah, received a Category A Plant Safety Award from the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association for achieving 750,000 work-hours with a lost-day case rate of 0.15, representing two lost-day cases from more than 1,130 employees with more than 2.7 million hours worked. INBRIEF Volvo, Mack add Omnitracs to in-house telematics platform V olvo Trucks North America and Mack Trucks announced the integration of Omnitracs in each of their proprietary telematics platforms. Built on Mack's fully-integrated GuardDog Connect telematics hardware and Volvo's fully-in- tegrated Remote Diagnostics hardware, Omnitracs captures GPS location, road speed and idle duration and cost and provides an in-depth analysis of driver performance based on historical and current data and location. Customers can configure text messages or email-based alerts for exception reporting. "It also enables customers to focus on improving road safety by monitoring driver behavior and per- formance," said Conal Deedy, director of connected vehicle services at Volvo Trucks. Omnitracs subscriptions are available for all new Mack Pinnacle, Granite, TerraPro and Titan models, as well as on every new Volvo truck. It also can be retrofitted on older trucks. "Mack Omnitracs gives our customers a new look into their operations, enabling them to more easily see where and how their truck assets are being utilized," said David Pardue, Mack vice president of connected vehicle and uptime services. – Jason Cannon International's latest designs to focus on driver I nternational Trucks launched its DriverFirst initiative to design its trucks with an emphasis on the driver experience. The company said its new driver-centric features, stemming from research conducted for its upcoming line of trucks, include: • Enhancing comfort with better ergonomics, interior lighting and color while lowering noise, vibration and harshness; • Improving safety features such as visibility, headlights and systems that use radar, cameras and other technologies; • Increasing productivity with automated manual transmissions and easier vehicle serviceability and maintenance; and • Improving efficiency through fuel economy and more intuitive displays. "The key takeaway from our research is that drivers want trucks that are designed to do the job," said Denny Mooney, senior vice president of global product development. "Drivers aren't looking for something automotive or futuristic for its own sake. They just want something comfortable and func- tional with a design that helps them do their job better and more easily." International said its DriverFirst philosophy already has helped bring about several changes in truck options, including its own over-the-air pro- gramming and the Bendix Wingman Fusion system. – Jason Cannon International said its Driver- First philosophy already has helped bring about several changes in truck options. The Omnitracs integration is built on Mack's GuardDog Connect telematics hardware and Volvo's Remote Diagnostics hardware.