Truck Makers See Technology as Vital to Future of Trucking

AS VEGAS — Information — gathering, disseminating, analyzing and applying it — is the next driving wheel of truck making, leading truck manufacturers said Oct. 6 in their panel discussion during American Truck Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition here.

Information technology is “a continuous loop” that permeates the industry, said Tom Plimpton, president of Paccar Inc.

IT begins with research, development and design and then “moves into sales, manages the supply chain, assures efficient manufacturing, offers competitive finance programs, provides customer support after the sale and uses vehicle-performance data to provide a design head start for the next generation of products,” Plimpton said.