Developing new products to keep up with evolving consumer needs isn’t just good business practice, it’s a basic principle of supply and demand economics. Find a gap in the market, offer customers a cost-effective solution and chances are you’ll be successful.
When it comes to service truck equipment and accessories, Maintainer Corporation of Iowa Inc.’s new line of ready-made lube skids certainly falls into that category.
Introduced at the 2018 Work Truck Show in Indianapolis in March, Maintainer’s lube skids come
Maintainer crane on a new JJ model mechanics truck lifts a lube skid.Photo: Maintainer Corporation of Iowa Inc.
in eight standard models with mix-and-match components that can be quickly and easily modified to suit the customer’s needs.
Tom Wibben, Maintainer’s director of sales and service, says the idea was to reduce the amount of time-consuming custom work that often goes into designing lube skids to individual specs by providing as many options and configurations as possible on the sales room floor
“We revamped our lube skid line to provide a product that is a little more multi-model friendly,” Wibben says. “There’s one basic skid in eight configurations that can be easily modified with interchangeable bolt-on options. We were looking to shorten the forward time for modification.”
Since introducing the products earlier this year, Sheldon, Iowa-based Maintainer’s lube skid sales have increased 125 percent, Wibben says.
“The interest has been a little greater than expected.”
Industry-wide sales spike
Maintainer isn’t alone in seeing a sharp upturn in lube skids sales — it’s an industry-wide trend that companies like Taylor Pump & Lift, Southwest Products, and American Eagle Accessories Group are also noticing.
The growing need for flexibility in the service truck industry may be part of the reason.
Jeff Taylor Jr., vice-president of Taylor Pump & Lift says there’s an overall industry trend toward portable lube skids.
Jeff Taylor Sr., Frank Stevenson, Jeff Taylor Jr., and Mike Thulin work the Taylor Pump & Lift stand at the 2017 International Construction & Utility Equipment Exposition in Louisville, Ky.
“We were actually one of the first to get into lube skids, and I think other companies seeing the boat that has been missed over the past few years,” says Taylor, whose company is headquartered in Concord, N.C.
“We’re a lube equipment, lube truck, and lube trailer manufacturer. That’s all we do,” Taylor adds.
Over the last decade or so the evolving service truck industry has placed new demands on operators big and small, he says, citing higher environmental standards on the transport and disposal of toxic materials and new equipment with more rigorous servicing requirements.
“The days of carrying five-gallon buckets of fluid around in the back of a truck are gone,” Taylor says. “There are EPA requirements about oil spills, so many different pieces of equipment to service now, and the manufacturers are asking them to do a little bit more than they used to.”
Surprise, Ariz.-based Southwest Products has also adjusted to the industry trend toward high-quality, portable lube skids, offering a basic model that can be “customized to fit your exact needs,” says Brad Bjerke, vice-president of the vehicle division at Southwest Products.
“We don’t so much make the parts interchangeable, we custom-build the tanks. It can be three product tanks or a single tank with three dividers, depending on what the customer wants,” Bjerke says.
Southwest’s basic lube skid is 46 inches wide, 72.5 inches long, and 56 inches high, with three
New lube skid from Southwest Products can be custom-tailored, company says.
50-gallon new oil tanks, one 55-gallon tank, all of which are fuel, oil, and DEF fluid compliant. Along with industry standard features like lift rings, forklift slots and retractable hose reels, Southwest offers a 10:1 air pump with double the pressure of the usual 5:1 version.
Bjerke estimates Southwest’s lube skid sales have increased by about 50 percent this year, as more service companies realize that lube skids and lube trailers can do the work of a dedicated truck at a fraction of the cost.
“People are recognizing the increased flexibility they have over a dedicated truck and that they can increase their availability with a small addition cost-wise,” Bjerke says.
Configurations made easier
American Eagle Accessories, under its LubeMate line of products, offers four different ready-made, lube skids, says Jason Vertin, assistant product manager with American Eagle. The basic V90M model only has one 45-gallon new oil tank and a 45-gallon discharge, but one of the smallest footprints on the market at 42 inches wide, 30 inches deep and 47 inches high. At the other end of the scale the deluxe V250M has four 50-gallon new oil tanks and a100-gallon salvage oil tank yet remains relatively compact at 47-1/2 inches wide, 60 inches deep, and 52 inches high.
Graco pumps for new oil are available in 3:1 or 5:1, with Graco 1050 diaphragm pump for used oil, 50’ x 1/2” oil reels and 35’ x 3/4” salvage reels.
LubeMate also makes permanent-mount lube skids that “allow you to turn any service truck into a lube truck, with added convenience and flexibility.”
Maintainer’s new skids make it easier for operators to configure the skids according to the products they need to carry — whether it’s brake fluid, transmission fluid, engine oil, anti-freeze or diesel exhaust fluid — without having to make permanent modifications.
The eight ready made lube skid models have the same footprint — 42 x 75.5 inches at the base and range in height from 49 to 55 inches high. The addition of an optional grease kit lengthens the base to 93.5 inches, still small enough to fit the bed of most pickup trucks. Every skid has forklift pockets and four heavy-duty tie-down rings for hoisting and stability during transport.
Maintainer’s skids are made of sheet metal and structural tubing for maximum strength and minimum weight and typically have a standard set up of three fluid tanks and a waste tank. Other features — 5:1 air pumps, half-inch by 50-foot spring rewind hose reels and one-inch environmental waste oil hose and a metered nozzle option are standard for most models on the market.
In September, Equipment Today, a publication aimed at commercial construction contractors, named Maintainer’s lube skid line one of the Top 50 new construction products of 2018, based on web page views of new products featured in the magazine
Less investment required
Portable skids allow companies to deliver full-scale lube service without the huge investment of a dedicated lube truck. That’s especially attractive to smaller outfits and one-man operations, Taylor says.
“We do a lot in the start-up industry too. We’ll help them design a reasonably priced skid to get them started.”
Taylor Pump & Lift has four off-the-shelf lube skids available. The standard version comes with either two or three 50-gallon new oil ranks and a 60-gallon used oil tank. Taylor’s “Mechanics Body” lube skid features three 50-gallon new oils, one 50-gallon antifreeze, one 120-pound grease and a 100-gallon waste.
The deluxe mechanic’s model features all of the above plus a 14-horsepower gasoline compressor and air reel, for use when the service truck’s compressor isn’t available, an add-on offered by most companies.
Taylor’s sales are up about 30 percent so far this year. But when it comes to lube skids, there’s no-size-fits-all solution and even the off the shelf products often need to be modified in some way.
“About 90 percent of what we do is customized,” Taylor says, noting that the company also makes ready-to-roll custom-made lube trailers that eliminate the need to load and unload a portable lube skid.
In the past few years, lube skids have gone from an optional accessory to standard fare for machinery dealers, construction companies, retail firms, municipalities and anyone else with a fleet of heavy equipment to maintain.
Wibben says that’s partly the result of stricter servicing requirements from manufacturers that have increased the overall amount of service work that needs to be done.
“New machinery needs a little more love and attention so the preventative maintenance has to be done regularly,” Wibben says. “That’s why we added standard oil filtration - the new machines are so sensitive it just had to be there.”
Added efficiency covers costs
Small operators are discovering that the added efficiency of a line skid or lube trailer more than makes up for the initial investment over time, especially considering the added hassle and cost dealing with spills, says Jason Vertin of American Eagle, a division of Stellar Industries Inc. of Garner, Iowa.
“Companies are getting smarter and they’re trying to be more efficient and they’re trying to be safer,” Vertin says. “Adding a lube system to your service truck really eliminates some of the safety issues it also helps you be more efficient on the job site.”
Having an up-to-date lube service set-up also helps companies look more professional when they’re in the field, Vertin adds.
“A lot of them, especially the big equipment people, they really do care what things look like,” Vertin says. “They want their truck to look good on the road because it’s advertising for them as well.”
Sales of American Eagle’s lube skid line are up about 25 percent in the past two years, but Vertin says there’s almost always custom work to be done, even with off-the-shelf products.
“It about the size of the skid and size of the tanks, how many products you want to carry, how much you want to carry, whether it’s mounted or mobile, it all depends on the customer’s needs,” he says. “We do so much different custom stuff it’s hard to say what ‘new’ really means.”
— Brennan Clarke
Brennan Clarke is a freelance writer based in Victoria, B.C.