Already operating from the company's headquarters in Lisle, Illinois, the Uptime Command Center mobilizes a dedicated, cross-functional team of Navistar uptime specialists and key suppliers to assure 24/7 on-road support for customer vehicles. Its mission: Get vehicles back on the road as quickly as possible, and no later than 48 hours after diagnosing a problem.

"Our customers are all laser-focused on uptime, uptime and more uptime – and so are we," said Michael Cancelliere, president, Truck and Parts. "The Uptime Command Center steps up our commitment to lead the industry in uptime. We're separating ourselves from the industry's traditional, reactive approach to maintenance and establishing a new paradigm – one that's proactive, predictive and collaborative."

Cancelliere outlined the ways in which the Uptime Command Center delivers on its uptime mission across all three of these dimensions:

Proactive. The Uptime Command Center takes advantage of the company's industry-leading 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. Customers using OnCommand Connection report a 30 percent reduction in unplanned maintenance.

Predictive. The company's focus on predictive maintenance aims to take advantage of OnCommand Connection Live Action Plans, a feature now being piloted, which is expected 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.

Collaborative. In raising the bar on uptime, the Uptime Command Center is working collaboratively with the International dealer network, the industry's largest, to step up to offer 24/7 parts and service availability to support uptime. This goal builds on the company's long-standing commitment to 24/7 parts availability, which includes approaches like "hotshotting" parts from one of the company's Parts Distribution Centers to the dealer.

In pursuing the goal of 24/7 parts and service availability, the network is also taking advantage of leading-edge tools and technologies, such as the Accelerator™ Write-Up Tool, a first-of-its-kind Android mobile application that expedites customers' service visits by streamlining the write-up and diagnostic process and providing clear action plans for service technicians.

The Uptime Command Center team puts all these approaches together for maximum impact, Cancelliere stated. 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, 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."