Beyond the Wrench

AI is Rewriting the Rules for Diesel Repair

• Jay Goninen

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:01:07

Trent Broberg, CEO of Fullbay, joins the show to talk about where AI is taking the repair industry. In this episode, Trent breaks down Fullbay's shift from an app to a platform, how AI is changing predictive maintenance and parts identification, and key insights from Fullbay's State of Heavy-Duty Repair Report you won't want to miss.

Watch the video recording

About the Episode


Links & Resources


Join the ASE Connects Community

ASE Connects brings shops, dealerships, and schools together in one structured network to strengthen the technician pipeline. By making it easier to connect, collaborate, and support students through job shadows, internships, and classroom engagement, ASE Connects helps schools build stronger programs and helps shops develop a more consistent, local source of future technicians. Learn more:


Connect with us on social:

SPEAKER_01

Don't be resistant to AI. We play in a blue-collar industry, and that's what makes the industry great. It's all-of-the-earth individuals, but don't be resistant to it.

SPEAKER_00

Just try it. Beyond the Wrench with Jay Ganinen from Renchway. Welcome back to Beyond the Wrench. My name is Jay Ganinen, and I am your host. This week's guest is Trent Broberg, CEO of Fullbay. Trent is a thoughtful leader with a passion for helping businesses grow, embracing innovation, and building strong teams. In our conversation, we're going to dive into leadership, the role technology and AI will play in the future of repair shops, and what it takes to navigate change in a rapidly evolving industry. Trent brings a unique perspective on where our industry is headed and how shop owners can position themselves for success in the years ahead. Welcome to the show, Trent. How are you?

SPEAKER_01

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Jay. I think the intro there just says I'm a self-proclaimed nerd, and that's that's how I've been for 25 years in this industry.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you've got a long history in this industry, but you're relatively new to Full Bay, a first-time guest of our show. Full Bay has been a partner of ours for years at this point, and and great partners at that. Uh bringing in new leadership, uh, it's always fun to kind of get to know somebody. And I've gotten to know you a little bit over this first eight months. But how uh how's it been so far?

SPEAKER_01

Fantastic. So the yeah, I've been here, as you mentioned, Jay, for eight months. It's been a whirlwind. It's been a uh a ton of change, it's been a ton of change in the market, the broader economy, and full bay. Uh, we're bringing new products to market, we're moving faster than ever. We've got great uh a great position in the space, and and uh most importantly, uh I've been traveling full-time my whole life, and full bay is based in Phoenix, and I live in Phoenix, so I get to be a full-time dad, reliable coach.

SPEAKER_00

From what I recall, you are a an alum of Arizona State, correct?

SPEAKER_01

I am, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

As is my wife. I I that was it, yes, yes, yes. They uh I wasn't overly familiar with the Sun Devils until I got married uh or started dating my wife, you know, now 15 years ago. But now we're uh it's a it's a pretty steady staple in our house up here in Wisconsin. We've got ASU stuff all over the place.

SPEAKER_01

You're you might be the only one up there in Wisconsin. Yeah, I I uh I tell people I spent six years at ASU. Uh what I leave out is the grad school part because it's a little funnier.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, right, right, right. Well,

About Trent

SPEAKER_00

tell us a little bit about your upbringing. Uh, you've obviously been in the industry for a long time, uh, went to Arizona State. What happened after Arizona State?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's a funny story. And and you know, we're just on the tail end of uh Diesel Connect, which is our user conference for the industry, really. And uh walked up on stage holding a beer in my hand and said, uh and and kind of told this story of how I got started in the industry. But I was at the tail end of ASU in undergrad, and I was sitting with uh with the founder and uh of Swift Transportation, and he said, uh, Trent, what are you gonna do when you graduate? And I had got to know him as friends of friends, and I said, I don't know, I've been going to ASU for four years drinking, and he said, Why don't you come work for me on Monday? So that is my origin story. Shortly after uh I show up at work in dress clothes, uh, he puts me out on a truck for a week. So I spent the week in a truck unbeknownst to me with no toiletries, change of clothes, nothing. So I spent I spent Monday through Friday on a ride to just get acclimated of what happens in in the world of OTR and and uh in the class eight trucks. And uh and then a year I spent at uh Swift doing you know changing tires, greasing fifth wheels, uh managing drivers uh for quite some time, 50 drivers typically in a in a fleet, and uh that's where I cut my teeth.

SPEAKER_00

Man, I at the time it probably uh and maybe you were ready just to dive headfirst in, but you almost, as you're going on that first week on the road, have to look back and say, college wasn't so bad.

SPEAKER_01

You know, uh I'll always if you're out there, Larry Clement, thank you for for taking me on the ride. He unfortunately was a was a chimney, so I had my head out the window most of the time. But uh, but I'll tell you, uh, it was a good perspective. It was uh what I think I learned most was to do the hard work because I never complained through that entire year. But in my head, I'm going, man, I just you know, just like everybody, you go to college, you think, oh, you're gonna sit behind a desk and make all kinds of money and do these things. And and you know, I had a finance marketing uh, you know, degree, and uh and I'm here I am, greasing fifth wheels, and and like I said, unloading a 53-footer full of tires in the middle of summer in Phoenix. And uh never complained once. And I think it was a good way, and I think that earned a lot of credibility for me in their leadership.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think that's a really good lesson, you know, as we're sitting at the the time of year where a lot of fresh college graduates are coming out into the workforce, there's a great lesson in what you're talking about there of regardless of what your degree was and how educated you are, there is so much to learn as soon as you get in. And and really, I think the more you can learn the true nuts and bolts of an operation and how things work and how you know you you went on the road to get that firsthand knowledge of what it's truly like to be on the road. It you can have all the education in the world, but until you kind of go through those steps and and really kind of learn, learn systems and learn how the real world works, uh, it your education will come into play. It'll be really, really handy at some point. But the the willingness to roll up your sleeves and just get to work and learn is so important.

SPEAKER_01

No one's gonna do that. We have a culture here at Full Bay that we're we're continuing to foster. And I've always said this in my career 80% is on you, and 20% is on the company. So as you think about all of you listeners out there, myself included, uh, you've got to take the initiative, you've got to do what you need to do. Uh, whether it's ask for this position, put in the extra effort, or find something that really you're passionate about. But 80% of your career is on you. The company only owes you 20%. And oftentimes that's the inverse in people's mindset.

SPEAKER_00

That's great advice. So uh let's continue on with your career uh as you go through a Swift. How what what does that lead to?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, I said spent uh, you know, worked in finance and marketing and fantastic career, fantastic company they've grown in, you know, continued to grow with Night Swift now, and and still friends with people today that are over there and executives. So it's been that was just such a great experience. Spent almost 10 years there. Uh, wanted to spread my wings, no issues. It was one of those things where it's like, okay, I've learned a lot here. Where else can I learn? I don't sit well, I want to go learn more. So I spent a couple years at DB Shanker, which is you know global freight forwarder based in Germany. Uh, they wanted me to move to Germany, wasn't in the cards. Uh, and I I found a small uh Idaho company called Internet Truckstop at the time. Uh, and uh went to work over there and and uh you know spent uh almost 10 years there growing that business into truckstop.com and what it is today is uh you know ultimately COO. That was a good, a great experience as well.

SPEAKER_00

Was that kind of at that startup level when you went there, or how how far along was the company?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, they were a little farther past startup. It was you know founded by a gentleman named Scott Mosgrip, just a uh just a fantastic, smartest person you'll ever meet. Uh and uh and and it was started in a small town in New Plymouth, Idaho, and it was you know under 100 employees. It was fairly small, and and uh you know, it was it was all owned. I actually started to work for one of the acquisitions they made. It was a partial acquisition, so that's kind of how I worked in. I were as a GM structure and and owned that as uh it was a TMS product in the space, and and then continue to grow. We switched the brand, uh learned a ton from people in the industry there and what that you know they're fundamentally truckstop.com is a is the kind of the town square, the spot market of freight. So because of that, and because of the amount of uh freight, which was about at the time, about 12% of the US GDP that went through that platform, I just got to know everybody in the industry.

SPEAKER_00

Isn't that crazy? Just uh one, the 12% of this gigantic, gigantic industry, right? Like that and the amount of connections that you're able to make because of that is hugely impactful to your career, I have to imagine.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, as I started off, it it is. I'm a self-proclaimed nerd, so that fit really well in that intersection of trucking. I have I have a a very uh close perspective with drivers because I worked with drivers for so long, and that's how I started my career and managing drivers. And that allowed me to get into them, these are typically owner-operator small businesses that work with truck stop, and that allowed me to kind of bridge the gap between the technology and innovation side of things and the and the uh and the the trucking. And I think most people would would uh call me an extrovert, and that kind of works to that network effect that you are you're out there in the space and you're learning and meeting great people in this industry.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it it is hugely impactful, and then that eventually leads to you coming to Full Bay.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, actually, I I spent uh almost five years at a at a uh the largest automotive logistics company right before Full Bay, based in St. Louis, company called Assertis, fantastic business, grew that into a platform, acquired eight businesses, and and uh they're doing great today in the automotive logistics space. They service you know OEMs, dealerships, fleet management companies, and and uh many others. And and uh I was on the road for both of those companies almost full time, four out of every five weeks, whether I was in Idaho or Chicago or St. Louis. And uh and I saw this fantastic, I knew Full Bay. I knew so I jumped over to Full Bay, I knew Full Bay because it was based here in Phoenix. Um, I knew a board member, I knew I knew the bankers, they're private equity owned, so I knew a lot of people around this business, and it just worked out great.

SPEAKER_00

I before we get into the full bay stuff, because there's a lot there, I do always ask those that have been on the road a lot for travel advice because uh that's uh I I spend quite a bit of time on the road myself. I'm always looking for ways to improve my experience or uh make it uh some of it is not even the experience of travel, it's how to navigate home life and trying to uh, you know, we have a nine-year-old son, so how do you get him to school when I'm on the road? And you know, that all of the things that go into it that maybe you don't think about, yeah, but anything that you learned in your years of travel, I know this is a very vague question, but in your years of travel that maybe those folks that are that are hitting the roads all the time uh might be able to to uh to learn from.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the primary you learn that I learned very quickly that my wife is an angel, and she she is a retired elementary school teacher, and she gave up her career because of this, right? We have kids, I've got a 12 and a nine-year-old, 12 tomorrow, and a nine-year-old. And and when I was on the road and trying to balance that, we had to make a decision on what we were going to do. Because at the time, we're talking, you know, 12, 15 years ago, uh, that was really hard. It was a very hard decision for us to make. And she made the same investment that I made in my career, in her career, and in thinking about it and how you make that 80-20 rule. And, you know, it helps that we've got a fantastic family around us. And, you know, the the the number one thing that I learned very quickly is just to over-communicate. And while my kids were young, I continued to make sure that I always answered the phone. If they called, I always answered the phone. If I'm in a board meeting, it's like I'll call you back. So everybody around me knew that my family was important to me, that my kids were important to me, my wife was really important to me. And we were going through COVID, right? So it was all Zoom. It was similar to this kind of mentality. And what I would also do through that time is anytime my kids, because they're young at the time, would come in, they would join the Zoom with me. So everybody at the company knew both my kids. They all knew it's like, hey Lincoln, how you doing? Hey Barrett, how you doing? Uh meet Jay. He's here's who Jay is, and they'll ask a couple questions and then okay, we're back on to it. So I never cool. I never uh I tried to try to, and it doesn't always work. I tried to never take uh my job and elevate it above my kids and and wife and family.

SPEAKER_00

That is just good life advice as a whole. And uh as you talk through that, that is those are real conversations that happen even with my wife and I. My wife is a third grade teacher, and it's a uh at times you you you're absolutely right. Uh, she's had to make sacrifices as we've grown the company, and it uh at times is challenging, and never saying that in the sense of like wanting anybody to feel sorry for me, but it is uh it's a different dynamic than maybe the general eight to five where you're just you know kind of reporting to a shop every day or or whatever. So I I give you a lot of credit for navigating that because that is uh that is maybe a little more challenging than than people give it credit for.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's all about sleeps. How many sleeps are you gone? Not how many days, how many sleeps are you gone? There's a lot of red eyes associated to that to try to get home or not, you know, depending on how that worked.

SPEAKER_00

But a lot a lot of times I've got back to the airport after midnight, but it was better to get home for that night. I I like that a lot. Yeah. Oh, this this

Why This Partnership Just Works

SPEAKER_00

is great. So ultimately, that that is where we lead to to full bay then. And as I mentioned at the top, full bay has been a great partner of ours for for many years. Uh, and uh even through transitions, it's just been uh a wonderful partnership. I think the company as a whole, the fabric of it and and the culture has carried on, right? I I think just a really cool place to work. Uh, everybody that I always talk to is just always just overly great to me personally, too, right? Where they they've uh really gone out of their way. And and the company itself, I have to imagine, as you're looking at it from an outsider's perspective, uh there's got to be some intrigue there in general about what a great company it is and and really kind of the reputation that it carries throughout the industry.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. Yeah, and first off, Jay, thank you for the partnership over the years. It obviously predates me, so I can take no credit. Uh, but you have built a fantastic community, just as Fulbright, and our ability to bring those communities together because we have the same audience is is has been fantastic over the years. And the help with the state of duty heavy repair and some of the content you put out. And there's uh, you know, foreshadowing, there's a lot more fun stuff we can do together as we want our data. So um, yeah, no, I I think uh, you know, as I was looking at, you know, understanding who full bay is and what the opportunity is, you know, full bay is full bay is a a a very well-regarded company, and it proved out in our user conference, right? You know, well, when you sit in an executive role, sometimes things roll downhill and you're sitting at the bottom of the uh bottom of the hill and trying to figure out how, you know, what are the challenges with the product? And and look, we're we're uh we're imperfect, we recognize that. But when you sit and talk to these customers about their life and their story and their family operations and how they've grown to second generation, all on the backs of a platform that that that the founders at Full Bay created, it's a pretty fun story to be in. You know, we're we're we did six and a half billion through the shop, through the software last year. It's got 5,000 customers. Uh we've got some fun stuff on the horizon that we can get into here, and and uh look we're gonna we're growing faster than ever.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you mentioned the conference, Diesel Connect. I believe was this the fourth year of Diesel Connect? Uh I believe. Yeah. Six. Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah. So I've had the fortune of coming multiple times to the conference, and I'll never forget the first year going and and just really kind of everybody was a little nervous and how it was going to go, and they just absolutely knocked it out of the park from the start. And this year, as we've kind of graduated through the years, it really started to like it, it is such a great conference. The amount that the the the type of content uh that happened there. Uh, you know, and I I just think back to you bringing that beer on stage to kind of kick things off, right? I it was uh one of those very memorable presentations where uh you you you see the CEO of Full Bay walk out with a beer on stage. You're like, this I wonder what what turn this is gonna take here. This is a this is an interesting one.

SPEAKER_01

We well, it's important that uh I bring we all bring levity to what we do. Um I think it's important that that Diesel Connect is one, an educational uh conference, but also a little bit of fun uh mixed in there. I think that is how we build and foster the relationships we're in. Look, we're all we all take ourselves too seriously, we all have our own challenges, we all, all of our companies have our own challenges, whether they're unique or similar. And uh if we can take some time to to thank each other and just be present in the moment, I think that's important. And the conference was fantastic. It's my first time being at the conference, and it was just such a great event to just talk to customers and and understand who they are, what their origin story is. I'm always fascinated by origin stories because I've got an interesting one myself, and and uh yeah, it was a great conference.

SPEAKER_00

I so as a NASCAR fan, you had Larry McReynolds on the stage right off the bat. Uh, how was Larry?

SPEAKER_01

Larry Mack, yeah, got to meet him. I mean, he's a legend, right? Larry Mack, he was the greatest crew chief driver ever. And and I'm you know, uh I had some nice conversations with him backstage about specific drivers and you know, Dale Hernard Jr. and senior, and and you know, working with them closely. Unfortunately, we had the loss of obviously Kyle, and and he had worked with him, and that was the day after. So there was just a lot of emotions uh wrapped up in that because I took it. That was wild. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, the the timing of that and for him to kind of keep his composure on stage. Uh he's a true pro uh in in how he approaches things. And um, yeah, I I was geeking out from the audience side and and uh really enjoyed that. And then uh you had Dave Anderson as well, who has been on the podcast before and uh a friend of mine uh and and talked about accountability for shops. And you know, I think his message was really, really important to shops that were out there uh in how they run their operations, how they hold folks accountable to a to a higher standard. Just all in all, just those two sessions alone would have been worth it for most people. And then there was so much more that went into it over and above that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. We try to do a lot of breakout sessions. We try to bring helpful people, right? Helpful in the context of what can you take back and work with their leaders or work with their technicians or their individuals to just ultimately make their profitability or whatever they're you know, not everybody wants to be growing and not everybody sometimes it's a lifestyle business, but you can take these nuggets and take them back to both your professional and personal lives. I think that's important.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I had a couple of breakout sessions myself there. Yep. Uh the audience there is always engaging, uh they're always asking questions and and wanting to get better. Uh, one of my favorite conferences as a whole, just in general, uh the facilities there, phenomenal, always have a blast. Um, and so yeah, just kudos to you and the team for another heck of a conference. And as you're listening to this, if you're in that diesel world and and you're looking for an opportunity to get more learning and get more uh ability to run your business better, there's not a better conference out there. It is really, really well run.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thank you. We had about 400 uh attendees. We were capped, so get in early if you're gonna get tickets for next year. It'll be this similar in May next year uh here in Phoenix, Arizona. I promise you it's not as hot as people think uh that time of year. But uh yeah, I appreciate the the positive. Sentiment there. It's only going to get bigger and better.

SPEAKER_00

Now, there were a lot of things as again as I led the show with, we're going to talk about maybe advancements within the industry and things that we can do to kind of move forward. And so as I'm thinking about this and kind of almost recapping the conference, you had some pretty significant announcements at the conference.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah,

Fullbay Isn't Just an App Anymore

SPEAKER_01

we we were holding uh patiently to announce uh what will be the new platform for full bay. Uh it's called Full Bay Next. Right now, it will just be Full Bay as we launch that out the door, but that's we've got to talk about things distinctly between what we have today and what we're having tomorrow. The way that we're thinking about Full Bay, and and this is some more information we didn't even share at the conference. But uh but the way that we're thinking about Full Bay as an entity, we have a product on the shelf and it's an application. It's got its challenges, you know, it's sometimes challenged in reporting structure for enterprise large customers and many other things that I'm sure customers are thinking right now today. And we recognize all of the pitfalls that go into that. We have built, and it is in beta, we have built a new uh ground up platform. So rather than thinking things of an application, we've built Full Blade as a platform so that now we think about bringing best in class partners into the fold, think about the integrations we can do with our customers' uh internal systems. That will be a game changer for the industry. And and we're having just fantastic feedback from early adopters here.

SPEAKER_00

It's exciting as far as timeline goes. What are you looking at there?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so you'll see, like I said, we announced it at the conference. We're in beta with some customers. So thank you, customers, that are helping us always get better. We recognize that. And uh, you know, you'll see you'll see this coming out in Q3 where we start launching this to select customers, typically uh the smaller end of customers as we think about the launch and platform so we don't disrupt uh our customer base. But what's most important here is that it is AI native and it is AI first. What that allows us to do, uh, as everybody knows, is move a lot faster with development, with feature releases, with with how we're thinking about this platform versus an application. And uh you'll see a rapid development, you'll see rapid release schedules, and it's gonna be a lot of fun, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00

How do you keep up with all of the advancements? You know, we we talk about AI all the time. We talk about just how rapidly things are moving right now in terms of technology. As the CEO of a company, how how do you kind of stay on top of that? I mean, there's a lot going on right now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the short answer is you can't. Uh so you do your best. I I am I have I block time specifically for this throughout the week. Research, development. I think the most important part right now is just to use the products. Use Claude in your own life so that you're eating your own dog food and I'm in there building out agents and I'm building out workflows and co-work and doing things that that maybe is unique uh in that sense, but um it's about having the the right team in place. Our technology leadership is world class. They've built uh, you know, two gentlemen here, Kirk and Scott and and many others that that uh that report to them and John architects and and uh they have built world-class softwares. They've come from 30 years at Microsoft and Amazon and these companies that are just on the forefront of success, and that they're building out what I believe is one of the best, it's one of the best development teams I've ever worked with.

SPEAKER_00

That's insane. Uh that's really, really cool. Now, what do you see for the future of this, right? Because as we're maybe looking forward to this, I think from a shop's perspective, this can oftentimes be really scary because you're hearing about all of this, and and every time you turn on the news, there's something else about AI or any trade publication you're reading. There's AI. Like, I I think there are some of us that might be overwhelmed by it right now and trying to digest everything that's coming. But in a lot of ways, it's going to make our lives better, right? We're we're going to make things and some of those mundane tasks that maybe we don't want to do as much, it might help us there as well. What do you see for the future of this as it relates to the diesel repair industry?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you just go through any shop, go through any business, and look at all the administrative work that can be cut out through AI. That's the way that we think about it. We map out the customer journey, we understand where things are can be solved through AI. We live in a service industry. You can't AI a wrench, right? But you can for sure serve up the right data to make that easier uh to find a part, to find what we need to do to figure out the predictive maintenance solution, get into uh into understanding scheduling, understanding where the parts are, how to get them just in time. When you look at that whole continuum, there's so much to do there. And we're just scratching the surface. But you know, 65% of our shops uh don't use AI today. Or what they do is, you know, chat and conversational, right? We have AI products native now on the platform that are helping to transcribe for English as a second language, that are helping clean up tech notes, which is always a challenge for service writers out there and understanding how to get things in a nice package. So we're trying to do things that we've got that we can in the product today as we're simultaneously building, you know, full main X.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and and you look at a problem like technician notes that you mentioned, and this has been a problem forever. I I think I I don't remember a time where this was like an easy thing, right? You might have a technician that does a really good job at it, but then the rest of the team might struggle with it. I think the ability to use technology like that to simplify their job and and maybe uh, you know, I I don't know what your plans are in that regard, but I I think that you look at the administrative tasks, that is one of the most common ones that I hear from techs about writing stories and and making sure that they're detailing what repair they did. I do think there's just such a huge opportunity for AI to help out there and and uh again make the lives of technicians and managers better.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, when you look at this problem to solve, it's about wrench time, right? How can we take the business as a whole and apply more revenue generating opportunities to a shop? So when that part of that is, like you said, technotes and technology's cleanup and understanding we have shops right now that are leveraging mics, Bluetooth mics to dictate to Full Bay, to then transcribe everything in a different language than English, and it packages it up, cleans it up, uh converts it to English and translates it to English and gets it into you know the invoice and the system itself. So that just things like that are big savers, uh, you know, big time savers, so that you can spend more time on the wrench and more time doing what you do best to earn you know money.

SPEAKER_00

And less time doing the stuff that you hate doing, right? I think there are a lot of technicians that would admit that they don't love writing up those notes and and maybe uh try to push through it rather than you know kind of do it at a high level. I've seen some technicians are fantastic at it, don't get me wrong. There's some that would rather not. And I think I probably fell in that boat uh back in the day, right? Of of uh not wanting to write up the descriptions as much. So I I do think the better that gets, then you're saving time up front. And maybe the time up front can be spent on workflow or trying to get more business in the door, you know, whatever it might be, it does open you up to do more proactive things to help grow the business. I just think there's so much value there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, in our in our reporting, 57% of shops are understaffed, right? That's not uh a shocking statistic to anybody. But how do we solve for that? You solve for that through obviously technician recruiting and and things, you know, specifically the wrenchway does, but but also through being more efficient at how we solve problems, how we find how we write up, how we find parts, what are the diagnostic solutions and how we're fixing things and and largely how do we predict these movements farther upstream.

SPEAKER_00

If you're an automotive, diesel, or collision instructor, or an educator helping students explore these careers, this is for you. Building relationships with local shops takes time, and knowing who's willing to help isn't always clear. ASC Connects, in partnership with Renchway, brings schools and industry together on one easy online platform at no cost for schools. At the heart of ASC Connects is School Assist, the online resource that lets you post exactly what your program needs. From guest speakers, shop tours, tools, advisory committee members, career fair participants, and even student job opportunities. Shops can see your requests and respond directly to you. You'll also get access to instructor-focused resources, webinars, and templates designed to save time and strengthen industry partnerships. Even if your school doesn't have a formal auto or diesel program, you can still participate to help connect interested students with real world opportunities. ASE Connects is free for schools. Get started at wrenchway.com slash solutions slash schools or use the link in the show notes.

AI That Predicts Breakdowns Before They Happen

SPEAKER_00

How do you see it playing out for predictive maintenance, right? And I, you know, that part fascinates me, especially as it it relates to the aftermarket world in in a way that you're trying to for me anyway, I'm trying to wrap my hands around how how does that work uh for that predictive maintenance and and trying to help a customer understand their truck and and trying to get it maybe a little bit more uh I guess proactively out in front of some things that could could save you a lot of money down the road.

SPEAKER_01

I first typically start with, are you doing PM services? That's right, that is a standard, right? And that is while you think it would be more widely adopted, PM scheduling isn't quite as adopted as you think. So you got to get to that level, right? Now AI can help you in understanding what are the PM schedules or what should the PM schedules be, right? Once you get out of warranty and and and you know, it's kind of this open space, right, where everybody's got their own program. So that's first. We uh earlier this year purchased a company uh called Pit Stop, uh, a gentleman named Shiva, uh, who's fantastic. Parents have owned a shop his whole life, so he grew up in a shop. And he built this predictive maintenance solution, and he's solving real-world problems at very high 80 to 90 percent success rates with things like soot levels and how are you what are TPMS and some other challenges that happen in this space. Um, so when when you take a step back and look at it, it's about leveraging data. Full Bay is the only people out there that has, you know, six and a half billion dollars last year in service orders and repairs and parts and and things like that. We needed a product that could take all that data, which we're not leveraging as we should today, and build predictive modeling on top of that. And that's what we're doing. So we're starting to test some of these models. And when you think about the usability here, it's really around understanding when to schedule and how to schedule, right? If we can get if we can reduce uh, you know, break fixes or roadside repairs or tow fees, right? It becomes such an advantageous situation for shops and their relationship with the fleets. So the shops are now using pit stop to then point solution, their fleets that they contract with and say, here, connect your telematics. Now the shop can see all the assets there and red, green, yellow. You know, which ones are need to be scheduled, which ones need to be pulled off the road, depending on what the telematics is saying, depending on PM scheduling, be depending on other predictive behaviors. So it's at the forefront, and there's a lot of work to be done.

SPEAKER_00

Is that based on what when you're looking at it's maybe not connected data, but more predictive data? So meaning that you're looking at maybe how many miles they're putting on in a certain amount of time, and uh basing service schedules, and and I'm sure there's a bunch of it that goes into it that I'm I'm oversimplifying, but we're talking more that side than the connected data, right?

SPEAKER_01

It's actually both. So yes, you have behavioral traits depending on uh driving behaviors in the truck itself, right? So maintenance scheduling, and you know, that's a little more rules-based when you think about, oh, we get to this miles, you know, like in your own car, you get to 10,000 miles, I gotta do these services, right? Those are more role-based, but but there are behaviors, and then there's sensors throughout the vehicle. So as telematics grows or as sensor technology continues to grow with smart trucks and smart trailers, then you can take that data and make inferences off that data because you've seen that same red flag uh a hundred times or a thousand times across 5,000 shops. You know what the service repair needs to be for that red flag because you already know what that truck, what that combo drivetrain is, and you've got all these data points that are saying, oop, I've seen this before. We should do something about it before something happens, right? And think about it just in the soot levels, right? You're starting, you know, once the sensor technology is reading that from the from from the truck, it's feeding it into full bay, and now you're able to understand, oh, my mileage is dropping. Now I'm paying more for fuel. I got to go do something, depending on if there's there's cleaning or faults that are showing up, there's a lot we can do there to add back to those fleets. And that's about helping the shop create value back to their fleet, their customers.

SPEAKER_00

How do you see that evolving in that customer communication then? Uh is it something where it's autonomously, and not autonomously, it's automatically sent as far as like a um a warning or something that you're trying to get in front of the driver or whoever's running maintenance for that vehicle. How do how does that communication strategy look uh in terms of communicating with them?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's a couple different ways how this happens. It depends on what products you're using, you know, what your platforms are. We have about 1200, uh about a thousand twelve hundred shops that we we would term as kind of hybrid shops that have in-house repairs, they do third-party repairs, but they also have a fleet in-house. So their ability to now take pit stop, full bay product here, they're running their fleet on pit stop, as you would a fleet management system. The shop is running on full bay, they're connected. So now you've got an uh a synchronous uh uh platform that's talking to each other. It's what are the assets doing? What are the downtime? The shops repairing, when is it ready, right? What's my ETA estimated time availability so I can pick the truck up, get it back into circulation. All of these things are happening now at the same time. And as we continue to advance this, once you layer on uh the the smart scheduling, and now I can do my workforce automation with my technicians, I can do my mobile, which one should be mobile repair, which one should be should come to the to the bay. It's a huge matrix of things that we're solving for and opportunities, but that's that's perfect world right now. That's why that was part of our thesis with Pit Stop. And we're seeing it real time today all over the place with these fleets.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, how do you see that impacting like a technician's daily life? And you talk about smart scheduling. Is there maybe a different approach for them uh from a you know, really kind of looking inside the bay and how if I'm a technician and I'm going in each day, how that's going to impact my workflow and and how I'm dispatched work, or you know, it does it have much of a change there, or is it kind of work as usual? It's just you're kind of picking up the next job and rolling?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think I think there's a couple ways to think about it. One is I'm acutely aware that sometimes technicians don't love full bay because they have to do tech notes and and the shops, you know, the the ownership uh or bosses, you know, create uh steps along the way that are not driving commissioned revenue or not driving variable-based revenue. So uh to them, or variable as compensation, to them. We're solving for a lot of that to make things easier, more streamlined. So, yes, it will be much easier and more streamlined. But you think about all the other wasted time. Uh, and I've got diagnostics, understanding the diagnostics into what the problem is, what's the issue that's going on here? We can absolutely help with that to get to a solution faster when you think about the three C's. And then ultimately, I got to go find a part. That's one of the most challenging things in our industry. There's no right to repair, there's legislation that just kind of got blown up a little bit, and there's just a lot of challenges happening in this space because look, you know, big trucks are bespoke. You know, not all are created equal. And so we can definitely help with that. We have 80, 84% of our shops sell parts and have a parts inventory in full bay. Wouldn't it be great if one shop could buy from another shop because they've got all these parts out there available? Yeah, stay tuned.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, you and you look at if you've got a large parts inventory, parts turn is such an important KPI within within a shop, right? And so the more from my experience and in and running a parts department at one point, that was one of those that I constantly had my eye on, constantly looking for obsolete inventory or ways that you can clean off the shelves to bring in more valuable inventory. I do uh, you know, I'm jealous of current day parts managers because I think they've got so many more tools and so many more, like I feel like more detailed analytics to truly understand your parts inventory than a lot of the like what we did back in the day, which was very manual going through spreadsheets and and really just kind of looking at pulling reports, making sure you're pulling the reports the right way back then. Now it feels like you're giving them a lot more tools to be able to manage that inventory so that it doesn't get out of control, because that is one of those things where if it gets out of control, that can be a killer for cash flow really, really fast.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Your balance sheet will hold a lot of inventory that might become obsolete to your point. And I think the first step, as you know, Jay, is bad data in, bad data out. You gotta catalog it, we gotta make it easier to continue to manage our parts inventory. And um, and then as you think about a platform economics, is if I don't have the part, how do I source it easily? Parts cross information, understanding who's got parts, and just as important where they are and how fast can I get it here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, especially in that world where if there's a breakdown, you are you're you know, that truck driver or that company is losing money by the minute, right? So you're you're you've got a little pressure on you to get things turned around quickly. And uh parts availability has been a killer uh for a lot of people doing that. So just more visibility to it, I think, is is helpful. Uh and the faster, and that's another example of like, okay, you hear some of the horror stories of AI, but that's another opportunity for AI to make our lives significantly better.

AI That IDs Parts From a Photo

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, what we have currently in in the product today that we're testing, uh where you can take a picture of anything on the truck or trailer, and it will tell you what the parts are, what's wrong with. The part, how do I find that? We're starting to increase the fidelity on parts cross information just from a picture. So the ability to get to the right solution faster, and as you mentioned, AI to predict what the right solution might be. Hey, before before you come into the shop, take a picture of XYZ. Now I've got it. Now I'm understanding what is wrong with the truck, and I'm already sourcing or inventorying parts. So the truck is JIT. So there's a world where you start getting into a much faster in and out gate uh in these bays uh than than we have seen historically with a AI, right? Just in that solution alone.

SPEAKER_00

It's crazy. It's it's really fun to think about how our world at fun and I think almost nerve-wracking, exciting, terrifying about how our world is going to look in five to ten years, right? Because it I it's going to have a big impact and it's going to maybe change the way we do some things. But I I'm very much a glass half-full type of person, and I look at maybe the advancements that are going to make our lives better and and easier. Uh and and ultimately at the end of the day, if you're in a shop, you're trying to keep your customers happy. And if it helps you drive that happiness and and maybe speeds things up, I I think that uh that's a win-win for everybody. Uh, and I do think, you know, you've got young kids, I've got a young son, and you look at the fact that they've really not had to wait for anything in their life, right? Like if they whatever they want, they get immediately. I think we've got that next generation coming up through that their expectation might be different than than what ours has been traditionally, right? They're they're not used to waiting, and and uh it's it's gonna take some some really proactive thought on our end on how we how we get out in front of that. Because I do think you're gonna have a different demographic of customers here in a few years.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. We're we're solving real world problems today and and and looking at where are we gonna be, you know, five years from now. You know, I uh as you sit as an executive in any company, you put together three and five-year plans. Honestly, I don't know how anybody puts together a five-year plan right now because the five-year plan that we started the end of the year off at that we put together in my first couple months here, you know, your 30, 60-day plans, we'll have all that done next year. So, you know, how do we look at what used to be a five-year plan and understand what we need to how we skate to the puck three years from now, even? It's a challenge. And and I think to your to your point, immediate gratification and how we drive efficiency throughout all of our customers and the industry is how we think about things.

SPEAKER_00

I said I I I empathize or maybe not empathize, I just I feel sorry for educators right now because you look at maybe in uh a middle school teacher or high school teacher, and you're trying to teach valuable life skills, and a lot of which won't change, right? There's a lot of things that are are core to a good base of a of a life, but then you're like, what jobs am I training these kids for uh when you know in 10 years down the road?

SPEAKER_01

I my nine-year-old is the first person, my my 12-year-old almost is the first person that's AI native that I know. He, you and I, when we try to find a solution, we go to Google. We say, Oh, I'll just Google it, right? It's become a verb. He goes to chat. And everything he does, he just sits in his room when he's trying to solve a problem or think about the planets. He's a pretty interesting kid, and he's he just has these really high-level conversations with chat, and he doesn't know a Google, he doesn't go to Google. So that's the way that we need to be thinking. Don't be resistant to AI. Yeah, that if there's one thing I can tell there's a lot of people out in in more rural communities or or you know, we we play in a blue-collar industry, like, and that's what makes the industry great. Salt of the earth individuals, but don't be resistant to it. Just try it. Just get in there and learn. There's lots of resources to learn, just try it.

SPEAKER_00

I I think you have to embrace it. I'll give a uh shout out. When I was in the truck space, I was on the trailer side at a utility trailer dealership early on in my career, and that's when YouTube was just getting off the ground. And I remember my boss at the time being like, that's the future, the video is the future. And I'm like, Oh, okay, like what all what all are you even gonna put out there? And then boy, has he been proven right over and over and over again. I just with the uh the advancements in video and and how how much that evolved from when it was early stage of my career. But then you look at that, like how that just continues to evolve. And and I give a lot of credit to him for kind of setting that in my brain of like just always looking for that next thing and trying to figure out, you know, how is that going to make my life better? How is that going to make others' lives better? And and how do you get out in front of that? So it's just a it's a mindset, and like you can either be terrified of it or embrace it. And I think right now, if you embrace it, you're probably putting yourself ahead.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think it's uh this week we got our first trillionaire out there in the space in SpaceX launched into the public markets, and and I think uh Elon's a prime example of that, right? It's you know, it's it's really being forward thinking, first principles thinking. What are the problems I'm trying to solve? Pragmatically, don't overcomplicate things. And uh yeah, there's there's you know, you YouTube is now the second most trafficked site on the internet in the world, right? Google and YouTube, right? And it's uh it is it has been a uh a chain a change leader for every industry everywhere, period.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and I I think all of that is is uh that we'll have to have you back on probably six months or a year down the road to talk about kind of what's happened since this recording because I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of change. Now, uh as we uh kind of conclude the

Takeaways from the State of Heavy Duty Repair Report

SPEAKER_00

technology side, I do want to maybe make mention. You you talked about the report. Uh what he's referring to is the state of heavy duty report that Fulbrig does uh and does a fantastic job at very, very well done report. Uh we chip in occasionally and try to try to help out where we can, but uh talk to us about maybe what you've learned out of this year's report and and just I know when I read through it, it's a really, really easy report to read, which I appreciate. Uh you can break down a lot there, but uh you you pulled a lot of data from your shops that I thought was really, really impactful. And I think even if you're not a diesel shop listening to this, I think if you if you read through that report as just a general uh general consumer, you'd probably learn something. There's just a there's a lot in there. Uh anything in particular that you you feel uh that that you thought was kind of a good some good feedback for industry or good good feedback for full bay uh as a whole?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think generally uh you know people gravitate towards financial metrics, uh, myself included, of course. And uh shops are getting better. So the majority of shops said it's better year over year. So that's great. I think we're seeing those trends happen in real time in 2026. The freight market, right, is kind of in this really nice upswing, highest rates you've ever seen. So the fleets that are customer service are more interested in pulling trucks off the fence and fixing lot rod on trailers and getting them back into production and really pushing for the opportunity to in the spot in contract markets to really to step into that space. I think you've got an economy that's that's continues to grow and expand. You see the the you know the the Wall Street continuing to grow. So these are all opportunities that our customers' customers are taking advantage of. And it's about us to try to make them more efficient to get these turns, to get their contracts with these fleets to manage. I think 17% of shops have increased their mobile capacity. So that's interesting. I think we continue to see mobility as a service continue to move up and to the right. When you don't have to pull trucks in, you can go service, do PM services in a lot. I think that's important. Um, you know, obviously labor wages and things like that continue uh to move up and to the right, uh, you know, up almost 8% year over year. Uh that will continue to be a trend. It's an inflationary environment. It's been heavy inflation for quite some time. Rates aren't quite at that, while they're at the highest uh peak we've ever seen for rates. Inflation adjusted, it's not necessarily where uh you would argue a boom time would be. And then it's really about technology adoption. Um, you know, how do we think about technology? Early on this year and and last year, there was a lot of talk about tariffs. Half the shop said they saw no impact from tariffs. I think that'll continue to increase, right? Because if you have parts inventories, you didn't have to reorder yet, and now you're seeing that kind of play out. Um, but I think you know that there's a lot of those trends that are just continuing to move up and to the right.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I think you're right. I and one that I'm forever curious about is the need to raise technician wages while also remaining profitable, right? And I think there's a lot of pressures on labor rates of customer posted labor rates to kind of keep up with that. And it's hard because you're you're you feel like you're constantly raising your rate and um in in order to stay competitive in kind of this competitive technician environment and and to you know, I think shops, it feels like are starting to kind of get their hands around that maybe a little bit more, but as we get our hands around it, I think the target continues to move, right? We we keep having to pay these these folks that are worth it, right? Like they're worth it. We just have to be able to communicate that value to the end user because they are going to pay more when they're getting a repair done, right? And so I I do think maybe that is an evolution our industry needs to really kind of lean into a little bit more is educating consumers as to why their their bills are going up. Uh I I think every bill for everything is going up drastically, but it's hard from a shop's perspective to continue to push the limits there because it it feels like you're constantly raising your labor rate now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think uh labor rate is obviously a statistic we watch closely and help help people with, but and and wrenchway particularly, obviously, you're it uh you've built a great business on on some of this. Um I think it's not a lot different than wages in general. Wages continue to move up, and I'll tell you what's moving up faster are technologists and AI people and people that are focused on in that world. And you know, it's it's part of the overall PL structure of a business, and you have to be confident. Peter Cooper was at our industry. Shout out to Peter.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, Peter's great.

SPEAKER_01

Um uh he'll talk through how how to how to run a better PL-driven shop. And you know, his motto that he will tell you over and over again uh the average hours worked for a technician is 46 hours, paying six hours of overtime. Uh he says overtime's a killer on your PL for lots of reasons. People think, oh, I'm getting more work, but there's a lot of reasons why that's challenging and burnout and such. Um, but you know, it's it's really about being firm and being confident in who you are as a shop, and then simply just articulating back. And if somebody's not comfortable with it, you can go find more business, I promise you, that that are comfortable with it. You know, their asset costs are going up, everybody's costs are going up, and it will forever. That's never gonna change. You know, the average trucks now are astronomical to purchase and put in production, right? Yeah, uh, so it's just never gonna change. So it's really about having the great relationships with your customers and being transparent with them.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, uh just good advice as a whole. As we conclude the show, uh, I do have a few just fun, quick hitting questions for you, uh, and and uh and more get to know you type of questions. So uh first one is what was your first car?

SPEAKER_01

A Jeep Cherokee, 1991. All right. All right, yeah, I used to do a lot of camping. Uh used to, I think I got all four tires off the ground a few times. Don't tell my dad.

SPEAKER_00

Uh are you a morning person or a night owl?

SPEAKER_01

Morning, morning. Uh early uh early workout, five o'clock in the morning. I'm not a Mark Wahlberg 4 a.m. club, but I'm close.

SPEAKER_00

I think I saw somewhere Mark is now waking up at like 2:30 in the morning, and I that's too early for me. That's uh that's too early.

SPEAKER_01

I think scientifically that's bad for you.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, it has to be. It has to be. Well, that's were were you always a morning person?

SPEAKER_01

Um I don't think there is a morning uh teenager or college student. I think the only class that I I didn't get an A in uh at ASU, it's you make your own judgments there on how hard that is, but was a 7 40 a.m. class. So no, I wasn't always. But when you get into trucking, you start early. So from day one, you're there early. You know, the clock starts, you go work from six to six, and that you put in a half day. That was kind of a mentality back in the day.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a good mentality to have. Uh, last question What is your favorite type of food?

SPEAKER_01

Um, I don't, I'm not a foodie, so I don't really care. No. No, I I eat to uh I try to be healthy. Uh my I should be more healthy than I am today, for sure. But I I don't really, I'm not a big foodie. You know, I what I what I would struggle with, you know, being in this role and and and having been in this role for a while are long dinners. They'll struggle for me. I'd much rather sit down with a customer and grab a hamburger and a beer and chat versus same this fancy steak and and wine.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think over the years I've almost become more of a fan of that. You know, I think when you're first getting started off professionally, you're like, oh, this is awesome. Go have a nice steak and go do all this, you know, all this stuff. And then you do get to the point where you're like, it's just nice to be casual and uh and and have a like just a true like heart-to-heart conversation with somebody, or you know, just really get to know them at a different level. So yeah, I I'm I'm in the same boat, but uh I uh I can't tell you how much I I appreciate you coming on the podcast, appreciate the partnership with Full Bay. You guys have been fantastic, and as I've gotten to know you over this last eight months, you you see kind of a continuation of more excellence, right? And so I I think uh and and really not even just a continuation, I think an elevation where you're able to come in and add uh a different element to it as a whole. So uh kudos to you, the entire team at Full Bay. Uh we we really, really appreciate you guys and everything you're doing out there. And uh I hope to have you back on the show someday.

SPEAKER_01

Of course, always uh thank you for having us when thank you for partnering with us. It's a big team effort here at Full Bay. And and uh if you're out there listening and interested in and working with us, there's always jobs available. So jump in there and and at shameless plug fullbay.com forward slash next to find more information and be in the tune on on new products coming down.

SPEAKER_00

We'll be sure to add that in the show notes. Trent, thanks again for being on.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Jay. Take care, be safe.

SPEAKER_00

That wraps up another episode of Beyond the Wrench. If you like this episode, please show your support by rating and following the podcast. You can also watch the video interviews on Wrenchway's YouTube channel. Speaking of Wrenchway, did you know Beyond the Wrench is managed and produced by the Wrenchway team? Wrenchway is an online community dedicated to promoting and improving automotive and diesel careers. We help technicians find the best shops to work at, and we also help auto, diesel, and CTE instructors get more support from local industry. You can learn more by visiting wrenchway.com.

Head Shot

Jay Goninen

Host