Work Truck Solutions has successfully completed the initial phase of a program designed to enhance the efficiency and transparency of the commercial vehicle bailment pool process for the entire supply chain. The Bailment Pool Pilot involved one major OEM, three leading upfitters, and a select group of dealerships, with the goal of improving visibility, transparency, and days-to-turn for commercial inventory.

How Bailment Pools Work

OEMs utilize bailment pools to provide upfitters with access to their inventory of chassis and vans by flooring them at the upfitters’ locations to be ready to be modified. 

Using the bailment pool approach, OEMs retain ownership of the vehicles, and upfitters may pay flooring fees to have the inventory immediately available for upfit orders. 

Once a dealership places an order for a specific vehicle configuration, the OEM reassigns ownership of that vehicle to the dealership, which then has a predetermined timeline to sell the vehicle before having to purchase it itself.

Problem: Lack of Transparency

Historically, according to Work Truck Solutions, there has been a lack of transparency into the availability, configuration, and status of OEM bailment pool vehicles available from upfitters at any given time. Key challenges include:

• OEMs know what chassis have been assigned to which upfitters, but they do not have insight into what bodies or modifications will be or have been made to the chassis. OEMs do not have a means to track that information, nor the details of the final sale of the chassis.

• Upfitters typically share their inventory information with prospective dealership buyers via weekly spreadsheets, but this data quickly becomes outdated as vehicles are reassigned to another dealership that has ordered them from that pool.

• Dealerships do not have an efficient way to search the upfitter pool inventory or view the status of their orders. This lack of transparency means they cannot market the inventory until they have the finished vehicles on their lot.

Due to the current nature of the process, it is possible for the entire transaction, from an OEM assigning a chassis to an upfitter, to the finished commercial vehicle being sold to an end buyer, to take up to 12 months.

Creating Bailment Pool Visibility

This lack of visibility into the bailment pool inventory was a key challenge that the Work Truck Solutions pilot was designed to address. 

By providing all parties — dealers, upfitters and OEMs — access to current information about available pool inventory and orders in progress, the overall vehicle ordering and completion process can be streamlined. 

This detailed information, built on the foundation of the VAST (Vehicle Acquisition Search Tool) network, reduces time from initial assignment to final sale.

"As a result of the pilot stage of the program, we've been able to identify key areas where we can enhance the commercial vehicle upfit and ordering process for our dealership partners, which will also provide value to both OEMs and upfitters" said Kathryn Schifferle, founder and chief vision officer at Work Truck Solutions. "By providing commercial vehicle dealers with better visibility of and access to pool inventory, we help reduce the overall days it takes to turn cab chassis and vans into the finished vehicle, which improves the overall customer experience."

Integrating the Data Feeds

By integrating and standardizing data feeds from upfitters, dealerships can order and display on-order vehicles on their websites, which in turn enables customers to shop for and acquire vehicles while in production, expediting the overall process. 

“As a leading truck body manufacturer and full-service upfitter with 26 locations, we have been focused on building innovative trucks with an emphasis on safety and reliability for over 65 years,” said Eric McNally, Reading Truck vice president of sales and business development. “We have always been dedicated to finding ways to better serve our dealership partners, so we were excited to participate in this bailment pool pilot to explore how to deliver more value in the overall process. Although still early, we have received excellent feedback from our dealer partners with several successfully selling trucks that were still in our shops being upfitted.”

"The insights we gained confirmed the value in expanding the program, and we are now starting to bring these benefits to a wider network of upfitters and dealerships, along with their customers," added Schifferle. "We have the green light from all three domestic commercial OEMs to work with their pool holders and have started the outreach with specifics on how to leverage this new technology for their benefit. We're excited to continue working with our partners to drive innovation and efficiency throughout the commercial vehicle supply chain."