Flatbed, Specialty Trailer Makers Tout Strong 1Q Orders, Sales
This story appears in the April 3 print edition of Transport Topics.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Specialty, flatbed and heavy-hauler trailer manufacturers exhibiting at the Mid-America Trucking Show wanted to talk about an exceptionally good start to the year, plus greenhouse-gas emissions regulations, aluminum, manufacturing discipline and a shortage of welders.
“We got a big bump right after the election in orders,” David de Poincy, president of East Manufacturing Corp., told Transport Topics.
East received almost 700 orders — a company record — in December from both dealers and fleet business, he said. “January and February are right behind the record pace.” East makes flatbeds, refuse, dump and drop deck trailers.
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February sales industrywide were at an all-time high for flatbeds, with almost 3,000 units sold, said Tom Ramsden, vice president for sales and marketing at the Canadian trailer maker Manac, whose U.S. sales operation is based in Sarver, Pennsylvania.
An annual flatbed market with 20,000 to 22,000 sales is a good year, Ramsden said.
As trailer manufacturers deal with the growing demand, they are being more disciplined this time, he said. “I think all of us could go and hire 100 more people today to get better lead times, but we are being more responsible, looking long-term,” he said.
Manac also has just “amalgamated” its two U.S. plants in Oran, Missouri, Ramsden said, by idling one to expand the other and allowing the company to “level load,” or to smooth production. “We have all of our products now under one roof. So we do dump trailers, flatbeds, log trailers all in one facility,” he said.
Asked about finding employees, Ramsden said it was not as much of an issue in the United States, but he had to look far and wide for qualified welders for its Canadian plant. “We probably have 30 Costa Rican welders now. The unemployment rate near our facility in Canada is under 4%,” Ramsden said.
At the same time, de Poincy said, finding a way to shepherd one of his specialty products through the GHG Phase 2 rules is a challenge, even though, as a company with fewer than 1,000 employees, East has until 2019 to comply. “They are giving us a year more than everyone else,” he said.
For some of East’s product line, the only thing that is required is either a tire-inflation or tire- monitoring system and low-rolling- resistance tires, he said.
However, East makes a refuse trailer model that is compactor-compatible, de Poincy said. “And we put a solid aluminum lid on it. By definition, that becomes a van or box trailer, which would require us to put the whole complement of aerodynamic products on it. And it won’t operate when you do that. [For example, going in and out of landfills could rip skirts off.] We don’t build many of them, but every year, we build some.”
The Environmental Protection Agency told East to send it drawings and then East can apply for a waiver by each product type, he said.
Speaking of the EPA mandate, Ramsden said, “It is making us think, and that is not a bad thing. It’s making us revisit what we do, … be a little more forward thinking in design, all the weights and materials.”
Longer-term, weight saving, such as using corrosion-resistant aluminum, is likely to play a larger role in trailer manufacturing.
About 5% per year of the volume of flatbeds sold each year are transferring to aluminum trailers from steel or combo models, de Poincy said. “We are up to about 35% all-aluminum of the total flatbeds built each year. So where’s it going to stop? I don’t know.”
He attributed that increase to states’ use of highly corrosive magnesium chloride de-icing agents on the roads and the general need for lighter equipment because tractors have gotten heavier.
Cost is also playing a role. “The gap from steel and aluminum pricing from 10 years ago to today is much less,” and aluminum has proved itself to last more than the 15-year life cycle customers need, Ramsden said.
Meanwhile, Talbert Manufacturing Inc., in Rensselaer, Indiana, will continue to rely on its willingness to customize trailers, Troy Geisler, vice president of sales and marketing, said as weary visitors to MATS sat on the edges of two heavy-haul trailers he displayed at the show. Both were the height of a bench.
About 50% of Talbert’s sales are trailers with features that have been adjusted to fit specific customer needs, he said. Most of those sales come from its dealers.
Speaking of demand in 2017, “I think it could be a tick above last year,” Geisler said. “We are not a dry van manufacturer pumping out 50,000 trailers a year. We have our niche. We do it well.”
