8. All Things Fleet with Steve Hodgerson

Andrea and Griffin are joined by Fleet Manager Steve Hodgerson. We discuss idling, Paccar engines, vendor changes and what's coming for trucks in our industry.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to Loaded, the Hahn Ready Mix Podcast with Andrea Meyer, Griffin Hahn, and of course producer Lex. And today we have an extra special guest.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

We welcome Steve Hodgerson, fleet manager around here to the podcast. Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

I wish you all could see just how excited Steve is to be here with us today.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

He's turning red with excitement. Is that what it is? Is it excitement? It's just eagerness. Yes. Yes. All right.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Thanks for being here against your will. We appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

I don't think I had much choice.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

That's very true. This was actually by popular request. I had a driver request to have the fleet manager come on and talk to us on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Awesome. Well, it's a good opportunity to share your thoughts with everybody, you know, in the fleet. And um I'm I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun. Before we get into that, what's new? How did the um the talent show go?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Oh boy. Luckily, the talent show was not a contest because we would not have been the winners of the talent show, but we did our very best and it was less cringy than I expected it to be. So That's good. I'm looking forward to next year already.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

I don't believe you at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Sorry, Eiley, if you're listening to this.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

What about you? What's new?

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Oh, nothing really. I don't know. Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

That makes for a boring podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

It does make for a boring podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Oh, you have plans. You have weekend plans.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

I guess, yeah. So we're going down uh to visit my parents, Lex and I's parents, um, with the boys uh for over Easter down in in Florida. So that will be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Beach beach Easter egg hut?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

I don't know. Definitely world's largest sand castle, Isaac and I will try to build, and then probably get in trouble because there's endangered sea turtles that nest on that beach.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

So stay away from that.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Yeah, that's a good thing to put in a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

I'm gonna have announce that it's happening.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Great, good idea. All right. Well, Steve, let's jump into this. Um give us uh just give us like a brief summary of of kind of your background, like where you where you were before you came here, what what what your career has been like up to this point.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

I've been doing this for uh it's been almost 35 years now. Um started off as a mechanic years ago with Mulling Consumers Company after I graduated from college and just worked my way up the corporate ladder. I was with Conway Freight for 13 years, and then I left and went to work for a company out of just Tokyo, Japan. Oh wow. Owned by the Mitsui family, was their U.S. asset manager, overseeing everything that they owned, rented, or leased throughout the United States, and then went to work for Pitt Ohio, who bought Dorne Transfer. I moved back here for a short period of time and left in 2017 and went to work for a company out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I was there until I came here. Wow. Grateful to be here.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah, well, that is, I mean, that is a heck of a lot of uh experience around fleets, and yeah, that's pretty cool. But it's quite an asset for us to have that on the team to have your your knowledge. Um, so that's awesome. Cool. So you've been you were with consumers, who if anybody doesn't know, was Riverstone's ReadyMix uh outfit basically back in the 90s. So you have a little bit of industry, specific ReadyMix industry experience from before that. But what's been kind of your biggest surprise or thing that's interested you since kind of rejoining in the ReadyMix side of things?

SPEAKER_01 3:41

How much it's changed. Um, you know, and the uh change and then the sense of urgency. You know, it's it's different than being in the over-the-road fleet.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We, you know, we uh the ver by nature of of the business we do, we don't treat our trucks well, right? We're off-road, heavy, dirty. And so that means that we have a lot more opportunity, I think, for breakdowns and for things like that. And we don't have a huge amount of excess trucks, backups, right? So yeah, that that sense of urgency certainly, you know, we've talked a lot about prioritizing fixing things right, you know, to have better long-term outcomes. But there definitely are those times where, well, we just need the band-aid to get through, you know. Obviously, we want it to be safe and we want it to meet any DOT inspection, but let's get the band-aid to get it through the next day when we're busy uh to keep it on the road. Absolutely. Yeah. So we've had a lot of vendor changes since you've joined, and you've really re-evaluated those with fuel and oil and tires. Talk us through like what prompted those kind of analysis and those decisions and what you look for in the vendors like that.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

It's mainly for cost to reduce cost and waste in the company, you know, to increase tire life overall. And then the oil that we changed is to prolong the oil change intervals is the ultimate goal. It'll take us some time to get through that, but yeah, that is the ultimate goal.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah, so we're we're buying basically a higher quality oil than we used to, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

We're buying a much higher quality oil. Good.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Um have you seen any impacts from that yet, or is that sort of a longer term thing?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

I think it's too soon to tell yet. The biggest goal that we're looking at with the oil is to reduce the DPF uh region issues that we're running into. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

I think everyone would appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, it's going to burn cleaner. It's a much lower ash oil. Hopefully, in the long term, we we prevent some of these DPF issues that we're having.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Well, I can tell you, uh dispatch will applaud that because nothing gets Chris Jurgens or Andrew and Chris Erickson more frustrated than they're going to attack a truck and they're like, this is the only truck in the yard with one load we got to load on it, and nope, that truck's regening. Right. So yeah, if we can avoid that, that's that's a big deal. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

And the biggest way, you know, if the drivers can impact this, it'd be less idle time when when we're not when we're not loaded, if we can shut the truck off, prevent that idle time, prevent that the buildup in the DPF filters, it'll reduce that region time as well.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Yeah, that's a great point. And that's not you know, historically been kind of the company policy. Everybody's let the truck run. Right. Right. Obviously, when we have a a load of concrete on the truck, it needs to stay moving, so we can't do it then. But while we're sitting in the yard, you know, it's not like we're agitating that concrete, it's all just stuck to the side, you know, as long as we don't have leftovers in there. It's stuck to the side of the drum anyway, so it's not actually agitating. So that's a great point. So that's something we can start focusing on. And I think it helps to hear like what the impact is, not just fuel savings, right? It's it's that it's gonna help us with those regen issues. Because yeah, the today's engines, correct me if I'm wrong, but they're meant to be run for over the truck or over the road, like constant running of hard, not the kind of the stop start that we have in our industry.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Idle times idle is the worst thing that we can do if we can prevent that idle. You know, and I'm looking at a program to where they'll do an auto-elevate when they're in an idle situation, the truck will rev up on its own. But to prevent that, the best thing that we can do is shut the truck off.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

So this auto elevate thing that's new for me. What's the uh how how does that how's that for a driver, right? You're in the truck and all of a sudden it just gonna do it on something's gonna tell them first or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

No, it the the whole plan behind this is is when the driver's not in the truck and they're just gonna sit there, if they do leave the truck running, the truck will take over and put it in an auto-elevate situation to where it's not at a low idle, it's at a medium to high idle range.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

To prep to try to prevent that DPF from plugging up. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

But it's gonna eat more fuel than at that point. So that's why shutting it off would be preferable. Okay. Cool. Well, that's really good to know. This year, I think anytime I talk with drivers about trucks or when I talk to other ready mixed companies about truck mixers, the the thing everyone is talking about is the pack our engine right now. You know, and whether it's what you got at Kenworth or some of the companies have Pete's, it is it is the talk of the town and not in a positive way. No, it's I understand that. So tell tell us uh so if anybody doesn't know, tell us kind of what the issue that you know we're seeing and what we're doing about getting that corrected.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

We're seeing a lot of water pump fault codes that are just there's no there's no rhyme or reason to it, and we're seeing injector failures. Injectors are and they're on national backorder, PACCAR doesn't have them. So they've came out with what I'm gonna call a snake oil. It's a fuel additive to add to your add to the fuel. Short term, it'll hopefully prevent the the injectors from clogging. PACCAR's redesigned the whole thing. Went through a meeting with them a couple weeks ago. They've redesigned their entire injector process, how it works, how it's made. Problem is they don't have the parts. So for the new engines that they're building today, you'll have the new injectors in them. The old engines, they're going to retrofit when they fail.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

And by old you mean like one-year-old. Correct. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yeah. Yeah. So our 2025 model year trucks that we have, 2024 model year trucks, they have the old injector. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

And there's there's really nothing we can do, right? Because this is a warranty issue.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

There is absolutely nothing we can do. We have to, we have to rely on pack car, we have to follow the warranty that we have on the engines, follow the recommendations.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Well, I know it's been it's been frustrating for everybody that the touches truck for the drivers that want to be in their new brand new trucks, and and you guys in the shop trying to keep them running. And you know, there's been times where we've gone to pick them up uh and they broke down on the way home from we've just gotten in on clear at Kenworth, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

So there's been times having them left Kenworth's lot.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

You know? Yeah. So and and you know, certainly dispatch is like, ah, we need the trucks, you know, and so yeah, it's it's uh definitely affecting everybody. So I appreciate your efforts to uh get our arms around that and and and mitigate that as much as possible. All right. What um so you've talked a little bit about idle times. What other opportunities do you see for improvement in our fleet? Either in the way we buy or the way we do things, you know, any anything that comes to mind.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

I think our next round when we when we go sit down and talk about buying, try to buy from a local dealer. I think we'll have much better local support with warranty. We'll have better control over the warranty.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

I think that's probably the biggest, the biggest thing. Look at buying local, no matter what truck it is, what manufacturer.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

But if we can buy local and get the get a better price, maybe I something to look at.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Well, you know, and so if anybody doesn't know, we typically when we purchase our trucks now, we purchase them through the mixer manufacturer. So you buy a chassis, which is really the most expensive part of the truck, through the mixer manufacturer, which we've done because they can leverage the size of their operation to get the best chassis prices. But it does leave us in a kind of a weird spot with the local shops because we didn't buy the truck from them and the rest of their customers that are there have bought the truck from them. Even though they service that make, you know, they didn't actually get the sale. So yeah, so that's uh yeah, that's a good point. What about internally as far as things we do in the shop or or the things drivers do with the truck? Again, we talked about the idle, but what else do you see that we could do better there?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

We we've made a lot of changes, as everybody's aware. We're we're trying to do better quality repairs in the in-house. The mechanics are this winter was an overwhelming situation because it was the band-aids were coming off and quality repairs were getting done.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Replacing harnesses, for example, instead of just repairing the short in them.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

So we're taking our medicine now, but it's gonna pay off long term.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

That's that's the ultimate goal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah. Good. What do you see? Talk to me about what's the future look like for trucks.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

You know, 2027 is going to be an ugly, ugly time if if the EPA doesn't change. They're going to require, we think that we have problems today with DPFs. They're going to require basically it's a separate engine to keep the exhaust hot to try to prevent the failures, but the Knox gases is coming into effect in 2027. And for those of Knox gas is something that every engine produces and gives off naturally.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

It just so additional environmental regulations will make the engines even more complicated.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Yeah, and more expensive.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, it's$27,000 right now, is what they're talking.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

And probably less reliable.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yeah. That's my guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

One more thing that can break and go robot. That has been the trend. Or more fault code.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Yeah. That's not exciting. No. Okay, so let me ask you this. Um, if the engines are getting less reliable and more expensive, you know, what do you see? Do you ever see EV mixers as being uh a thing? You know, that scares the hell out of me.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

You know. Just and I'm gonna say no because of the weight that the weight restrictions that would be on that. Yeah. I don't think you can haul four yards of concrete.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Yeah. I've seen that they have some in Ireland and Australia, but you're right. They're like half-size mixers, right? They're not hauling 10 yards by any means. Yeah, the the weight of the battery. Would be nice to not have to worry about an engine coming out. Correct, correct. I think you gotta worry about a charging station. Right, charging, yep, yep. I was thinking about that. It's like, well, if we had all EV mixers, you know, we have a lot of trucks that might park in different places, right? And some that park kind of in the middle of the yard. Well, how do you get a charging station? You'd have to run like underground cables, and yeah, it would it'd be involved. But uh, it's interesting to see where that industry's going with that, right? Anything else on the in the future that you see in the fleet? I mean, you know, cameras are becoming much more of a thing. We we've dove into that this year. Uh, any other technologies out there that you're seeing coming down the pipe?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

I'd like I'd like to see is test a backup camera. I think that would be a huge benefit to to the drivers and safety.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Well, the old adage is that the mixer truck drives further backwards than it does forwards half the time. Yeah, that uh that would definitely be useful. We'll we'll look into that. It's a good idea. What other advice or anything you'd like to address to the drivers? This is your your platform, right? So that we can we can every single driver is listening to this, I'm sure of it.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yes, absolutely. What about the daily vehicle inspections? Are you seeing what you need to see on those write-ups? Are they detailed enough? Are they doing it enough, or do we still have people that are would rather come in and talk to the shop than write it up?

SPEAKER_01 15:30

It's kind of a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

And then we see, you know, if the driver writes it up on Monday and we repair it on Tuesday, they might not realize it's repaired and they'll write it up again. Really, if you can just write it up one time and then talk to us, um, we'll get it taken care of right away.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Great.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Excellent. Anything else you want to let the drivers know or just remind everybody when it's cool cooler out to make sure that you're draining your water tanks and your air and your water valves. I I know it can be 70 degrees today, but tonight it can get down to 30. Yeah. It's still gonna freeze and crack. So it's all make sure we're doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

We're almost out of that, but not quite there. Not quite there.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

It seems to be dragging on longer than it needs to.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

That is true. Cold nights. Well, great. Anything else you want to talk about while we got you? I know this has just been the best experience of your life.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

So I know you want to it wasn't so bad, was it?

SPEAKER_02 16:20

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

You did a great job. We appreciate you giving it a shot.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, we have some other um announcements. Some of you might know we're a sponsor for the Bix 7 race here in town every July. And specifically, we are the title sponsor for the junior BIX, the kids' races. And the BICS has kind of updated some of their sponsorship programs. And so this year we have a code, we're gonna put an announcement on pay lossity, but we have a code for any children of any Han Ready Mix employee to get a free admission to the junior BIX. Uh, look out for that if your kids run on the junior BIX or if they haven't before, it's really good time.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

It actually is fun. My kids have done it every year, and it's not just the admission to the race, you also get uh Whitey's popsicles and hot dogs for your kids. So it's a free meal included with your race entry.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

So on the downside, it's normally 95 degrees. It is always so the popsicles are necessary for sure. So we'll get that posted out there. So don't miss that. If that interests you, you get kids that are that would have fun doing that.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

We'll repost that several times between now and July when it's actually happening. Just to follow up on our last episode on rejected loads and water added, we are still messaging frequently uh through Digital Fleet if we have questions about water being added on jobs. So I really appreciate everybody responding to those messages and caring enough to pay attention to what they're doing and be able to tell us what's going on. So thanks for that.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Yes, thanks very much. And thank you, Steve, for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Well, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Yeah. Thanks for listening to Loaded the Han Reddy Mix podcast. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening, and we will talk to you again soon.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Thank you.