Opinion: Turning Experience Into Practice
By Kirk Altrichter
General Chairman and Treasurer
American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council
This opinion piece appears in the March/April 2014 issue of Equipment & Maintenance Update, a supplement to the March 10 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
This week American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council gathers in Nashville, Tenn., for our 2014 Annual Meeting & Transportation Technology Exhibition, where there will be so much exciting and important news taking place.
At TMC, we’re turning experience into practice. Our members blaze industry trails in thought leadership and forge best practices from practical experience.
Comprised of a broad collection of experienced fleets, equipment suppliers and service providers, TMC is the only industry association that is focused solely on truck technology and maintenance. Using their real world experience, members work together to create the industry’s best practices in truck technology and maintenance to help improve trucking equipment and transportation efficiencies throughout North America.
For fleets, this means having direct access to information on equipment and technology specifications and maintenance best practices. At TMC, equipment and technology professionals:
• Attend the industry’s most innovative educational sessions covering all aspects of vehicle maintenance and design, planned by fleets, for fleets.
• Gain and share information with hundreds of their peers at TMC’s Shop Talk, a free-form discussion on equipment issues.
• Resolve troubling equipment issues at TMC’s Town Meeting and Fleet Operators’ Forum.
• Participate in voluntary standards-setting efforts through TMC’s Study Groups and Task Forces, which are tackling important issues such as electronic logging devices, natural gas powered vehicles and emerging onboard technologies.
• Witness and participate in the most informative technical event — TMC’s Transportation Technology Exhibition, which makes available to attendees the best minds on equipment issues in the trucking industry.
• Participate in TMC’s Future Truck Initiative.
As the only industry association that is focused solely on truck technology and maintenance, TMC and its member companies work together with OEMs to create the industry’s standards for future truck technology and equipment that help ensure that the truck of the future is one that is the most efficient to operate and maintain. I’ve been proud to lead the Council this year during my general chairmanship.
TMC has made a lot of progress in the last few years, especially with regard to the development and implementation of our Strategic Five-Year Plan, which is designed to keep TMC growing, relevant, and vibrant for the benefit of the trucking industry. Five years ago, we launched a new Service Provider Committee to help build stronger fleet/service provider relationships. Two years ago, TMC elevated that committee to full Study Group level and we look forward in the coming year to even greater participation of our Service Provider members in the governance and leadership of this Council.
We’ve also recently established a new “Educator Committee” to provide input to TMC on attracting and training Technicians. The committee is to be made up of fleets and educators that actively work at institutions training students to become maintenance technicians or maintenance professionals. Through this new committee, TMC will help review the training curricula that technical schools are providing and determine whether they meet the needs of the fleets and service providers. The end goal is to establish minimum training requirements that meet the needs of a broad spectrum of fleets and service providers. The committee will be holding its first organizational meeting this week in Nashville, and I’m excited about the potential for this new component of TMC to have a positive impact on our industry.
Embracing technology has always been a central theme of TMC’s — but not just chasing technology for technology’s sake. This is true for both vehicles and meetings, and at this meeting, TMC is introducing new features that should enhance the Council membership and attendee experience.
First of all, this week marks the introduction of TMC Connect, the Council’s new member-driven, online community. We know the value that TMC members put on the networking and educational opportunities we provide through our conferences and programs throughout the year. To build on that value, we are excited to enter into this new phase of member communications by providing TMC members with an environment to connect, engage and share critical industry information and best practices in real time.
This new community will also help TMC communicate more dynamically with our members, by responding more quickly to your needs and receiving your input on critical industry issues. This will only strengthen our ability to implement our mission of turning industry experience into practice.
Through the committee and other forums, members can conduct Study Group, Task Force and other Council committee work in a common, online, collaborative platform. They will be able to continue discussions and problem solving in a virtual community, and share documents that will help advance TMC’s strategic priorities, including:
• Conducting technical meetings where both formal and informal exchanges of information, experiences and opinions may take place.
• Sponsoring and conducting technical displays of new and used transport equipment and components.
• Publishing and transmitting technical and management educational materials in appropriate formats.
• Engendering pride in the transport maintenance management field through appropriate awards and recognition activities.
• Establishing cooperative relationships with associations, research organizations and government entities involved in truck transportation and providing technical information to such groups to improve the productivity and safety of equipment.
• Promoting the fullest voluntary cooperation between designers and manufacturers of transport equipment and those who specify, purchase and manage such equipment.
• Providing technical input, through our ATA parent organization, to U.S. and international organizations that write regulations and standards to improve equipment and transportation efficiencies for the end user.
• Delineating equipment, technology and management practices through voluntary development and publication of Recommended Practices.
To help the TMC Connect community evolve, TMC is introducing other new tools to enhance the attendee experience — including a mobile app to help you stay tuned in to what’s going on at TMC meetings wherever you are. This new app helps attendees plan their week, make contacts and appointments with other meeting attendees, and help access meeting materials and information in a convenient online presentation from your smart phone or tablet device. TMC is also leveraging new badge technology that will streamline attendance recordkeeping at its task force, study group, committee and educational sessions.
In summary, for fleet or supplier, TMC offers so much for its members. There’s simply no other venue that offers so much information on how to maximize fleet performance and efficiency. It’s your one-stop shop for fleet education, supported by the industry’s only user-driven best practices. It’s where the trucking industry excels at turning experience into practice.
Kirk Altrichteris vice president of maintenance for Crete Carrier Corporation.
