Keeping an eye on the trends and issues faced by those in the heavy-duty industry, as what happens in the heavy-duty world will certainly impact waste and recycling both today and in the future.聽
By Suz Baldwin
The waste and recycling industry plays an important, often invisible role in almost every community. Whenever you walk down a clean street instead of one choked with garbage, it is because the waste and recycling trucks have been through, collecting the refuse that accompanies, well, almost any civilization.
Needless to say, the upkeep and repair of these heavy-duty vehicles is critical. Each year we set out to capture a picture of the heavy-duty repair industry in our State of Heavy-Duty Repair report. In the 2024 鈥� 2025 edition, we surveyed almost 1,000 professionals in the freight, logistics, and repair industries, and augmented that information with data from 3,500+ shops.1
We have assembled some of the data we think waste management professionals鈥攅specially those who deal in the maintenance and repair of the units themselves鈥攎ay find interesting. Read on to find out the current trends.
Parts Can Still Be Difficult to Source
Perhaps not surprisingly 83 percent of maintenance facilities purchased parts because a unit was down and/or service was in progress. Almost the same amount (73 percent) ordered parts to replenish their inventory. Interestingly enough, it is quite a jump down to the 40 percent who bought parts in anticipation of a service event. In other words, 鈥渏ust in time鈥� (JIT) purchasing is making a comeback. (And yes, we realize those percentages do not add up to 100; that particular question was a 鈥渃heck all that apply.鈥�)
With that said, 60 percent of our respondents indicated procuring parts in 2024 is 鈥渁bout the same鈥� as it was in 2023. Unfortunately, 21 percent said it was harder.
Image courtesy of Fullbay.
The Top Concern for Everyone is 鈥� Hiring
Thirty-one percent of respondents said employee hiring, training, and retention was the top concern for their operation in 2024. And why not? Everyone in the heavy-duty industry remains at the mercy of the tech shortage. Forty-five percent of respondents said hiring in 2024 was 鈥渁bout the same鈥� as it was in 2023, but 39 percent reported it was harder or much harder to find the right technicians.
Hiring the right amount of talented technicians is particularly crucial for internal shops and fleets, as they are the ones keeping units operating safely. The technicians we spoke to reported that a simple application process, transparent wages, salary information, and speedy replies to applications were the top things they looked for when applying for work.
(Other parts of a good hiring process that technicians would like to see include meeting potential coworkers, seeing the culture of the shop online before applying, and checking out the building/location before applying.)
The Field is Getting Older
We will be blunt: the biggest barrier to hiring continues to be younger generations鈥� disinterest in the trades (although we do see some evidence of Gen Z bucking that trend). Forty-one percent of our respondents had between 21 and 51+ years of experience (31 percent of that was between 21 to 30 years in a shop). Techs with a year of experience, meanwhile, made up 3 percent of respondents.
We continue to be concerned about all the knowledge that older Gen X and Boomer technicians may take with them as they look towards retirement鈥攖here simply are not enough younger techs to impart their knowledge to.
New Technologies Are Afoot
We asked respondents what new tech they brought to their facilities in 2024. Twelve percent said predictive maintenance, while a further 6 percent brought in customer relationship management (CRM) software. By far the biggest response, however, was 鈥淥ther,鈥� with 77 percent. We gave respondents the opportunity to write in answers, and they have apparently been testing out tech like diagnostic software, Slack, and (brace yourself) a fog machine.
The Age of Assets is Increasing
Twenty-six percent of respondents said the vehicles they were repairing were a little older than usual鈥攁nd an additional 5 percent reported their units were a lot older. That is 31 percent of vehicles that are old enough to be recognized as such, as opposed to the 17 percent that are newer or a lot newer. This may indicate changes in the freight market, which often leads to fleets pumping the brakes on purchasing new units.
Moving Forward with the Heavy-Duty Industry
We owe much to waste and recycling vehicles鈥攁nd their operators and technicians鈥攆or聽keeping our communities clean and healthy. We owe it to the good people of this field to keep an eye on the trends and issues faced by those in the heavy-duty industry, as what happens in the heavy-duty world will certainly impact waste and recycling both today and in the future.聽| WA
Based in Phoenix, AZ, Fullbay is a heavy-duty repair shop management platform dedicated to making life easier for everyone operating or working at independent and聽 internal heavy-duty repair shops. The software takes repair requests, maintenance tracking, inventory monitoring, and more into the digital realm.
If you found this information interesting, there is a lot more where it came from. Take a look at the entire State of Heavy-Duty Repair, available for free at , and see what else is up in the heavy-duty industry.
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