ORLANDO-- In kicking off the Navistar presser here at the ATA Management Conference & Exhibition, Michael Cancelliere, president, Truck and Parts, presented the continuing growth of the economy and the rise in truck orders year over year as the backdrop for the OEM announcing it would increase prices on 2009 model year trucks “by up to 2%.”

He said that any increases can be viewed in light of what buyers of new trucks will receive in terms of “getting better fuel economy, more uptime, and more driver-centric features bringing value to these trucks. And our suppliers are raising prices for us.” He added that Navistar is still seeing truckload carriers as particularly strong buyers “going into next year.”

Turning to the main event, Cancelliere announced that Navistar’s new Uptime Command Center was already up and running at company headquarters in Lisle, Illinois.

He said the center is staffed by a dedicated, cross-functional team of Navistar uptime specialists as well as key suppliers to provide 24/7 on-road support for customer vehicles.

According to Cancelliere, the center’s mission to “get vehicles back on the road as quickly as possible-- and no later than 48 hours after diagnosing a problem” is also being supported across the board by all members of the International Trucks dealer network.

Cancelliere said the Uptime Command Center takes advantage of the company's OnCommand Connection telematics network, which constantly monitors and captures data from more than 325,000 vehicles that collectively travel more than 8.8 million miles per day.

He noted that a new feature-- OnCommand Connection Live Action Plans— is being piloted. It aims to predict when a part is going to fail before it actually does, and to provide the customer with alerts about potential corrective actions, the potential repair, the parts needed, and the training required to make the repair. Furthermore, if the repair is performed as instructed and the vehicle is under warranty, Navistar would pay for the repair.  "As we said when we announced the Live Action Plans, the best way to eliminate downtime is not to have it in the first place," said Cancelliere.

The Uptime Command Center is also working collaboratively with the International dealer network, which Cancelliere said is the industry's largest, “to step up to offer 24/7 parts and service availability to support uptime. This builds on our long-standing commitment to 24/7 parts availability, which includes doing things like ‘hotshotting’ parts from one of our Parts Distribution Centers to a dealer.”

The service network is also being equipped with such high-tech tools as the Accelerator Write-Up Tool, which he called a first-of-its-kind Android mobile app that expedites customers' service visits by streamlining the write-up and diagnostic process and providing clear action plans for service technicians.

Cancelliere said that when a fault code signals that an OnCommand Connection-enabled truck is experiencing an “unplanned maintenance event,” the Uptime Command Center team quickly springs into action. “Using vehicle health reports and location data provided by OnCommand Connection Advanced Remote Diagnostics, the team completes a full diagnosis, identifies the closest dealer with an open service bay, determines the parts that are needed, confirms their availability, and routes them to the dealership performing the work. “

For open cases, he said the team monitors trucks closely through a monitor board that measures vehicle downtime in minutes, not hours – reflecting the urgency of the Uptime Command Center's mission. The team also debriefs multiple times throughout the day to review all powertrain and chassis fault code signals and to chart out the best course of action.

"The Uptime Command Center reflects our steady progress in evolving to a proactive, predictive and collaborative maintenance model," Cancelliere said. "It builds on the International A26 Customer Uptime Assurance Program, which we launched in August to signal our confidence in our newest 12.4-liter big bore engine. Today, the Uptime Command Center is taking customer service and support to the next level, reflecting our passion to deliver uptime for all our customers."

Cancelliere also announced that Navistar’s OnCommand Connection Marketplace will go live on Friday, October 27. This is a new, open-architecture, cloud-based e-commerce platform for telematics services and a broad range of related driver support tools. It will be open to customer-created and third-party apps as well.

"The OnCommand Connection Marketplace is another way we are helping our customers become more profitable," said Cancelliere.. "The OnCommand Connection team developed the Marketplace to give drivers and fleet managers centralized and easy access to applications and other resources that aid in day-to-day operations."