ITF Group Cut Trailer Repair Costs by Rethinking How 1,800 Units Get Fixed

A 3PL running roughly 1,800 units — 1,400 trailers and 400 trucks — says it cut trailer repair costs substantially by pulling equipment into the shop for inspections even when no driver had filed a complaint. Liam Aghayev, COO of ITF Group, reported the results at a NAFA Fleet Leadership Playbook session earlier this year, alongside George Arrants, VP of the ASE Education Foundation, and moderator John Byron, technical fleet maintenance support at Fleetio. Roadside service spending fell too, he said.

The gains did not arrive fast. With 1,400 trailers spread across routes, ITF could not inspect the whole fleet at once. Aghayev told leaders to review results over multiple years before judging the initiative's effect.

Why supervisor walls matter more than written procedures

The panel's core argument: maintenance performance tracks the everyday decisions leaders make about standards, technician development and accountability. At ITF, maintenance starts when equipment enters the shop. Technicians log concerns through digital inspections, supervisors prioritize work by operational need, and every completed repair passes a checkout process — including a check of the work and a test drive — before the unit returns to service.

Technicians record their names against the jobs they complete. That creates personal responsibility and lets supervisors trace the work. Documented inspections, clear priorities and repair sign-offs are what make a 1,800-unit operation feel small, the panel argued.

Pressure is the enemy. Aghayev described how dispatchers and drivers can push technicians to fix the immediate complaint while overlooking a component nearing failure. The truck leaves sooner — and comes back broken again shortly after. ITF limits direct contact between dispatch and technicians so supervisors manage requests and set expectations. When operations can't wait, ITF assigns the driver an available truck rather than pushing an unfinished repair out the door.

"As a leader, it is your job to stand between your technicians and the pressures of the operations of the company," Byron said.

Byron also pushed leaders to model the standards they demand. When he managed shops, he wore required protective equipment on the floor and invited employees to call him out if he skipped safety glasses. Expectations carry weight only when staff see they apply to everyone, he said.

How should leaders handle repeat repairs?

First, diagnose. The panel listed likely contributors: time pressure, unclear procedures, knowledge gaps, missing service information and inadequate tools. Aghayev reviews repair records to separate a training need from inconsistent execution. If a technician has done the task successfully before, supervisors investigate why the process wasn't followed. If not, the fix is instruction or pairing with a more experienced colleague.

Arrants, drawing on chairing TMC SuperTech, said technician competitions can expose shared weaknesses. If several participants struggle in the same area, the whole team probably needs support there. He also stressed that coaching can't fix a missing tool or inaccessible service information — leaders must fix conditions around the work, not just the employee.

Byron framed mistakes as chances to intervene before problems reach the road: understand the failure, reinforce the correct approach, avoid creating resentment.

Can technician development move the metrics?

The panel said yes, with structure. Arrants recommended test-preparation resources to map strengths before technicians sit certification exams, which eases the process for experienced techs who learned on the job. Byron cited an organization where technicians owned their skill matrices, with transparent talks about readiness. At ITF, supervisors pair junior techs with stronger colleagues and hand over advanced work as readiness is demonstrated.

Aghayev insisted training needs a visible payoff for the person learning — career path and pay. Arrants added that mentor selection demands care: pick people who enjoy the industry and the company, won't be financially penalized for teaching time, and can actually help someone else succeed. A top technician is not automatically the right mentor.

On recruiting, Arrants urged fleet leaders to engage local technical education programs early — facility visits, job shadowing, classroom participation, part-time work — because waiting for graduation means losing students already connected to other employers. And don't treat entry-level hires as fully expert, then blame them when an unsupported transition fails, he warned.

What should fleets actually measure?

Aghayev said ITF moved past evaluating maintenance by shop spend alone. Necessary repairs still get done; the context that matters is equipment reliability, cost per unit on the road, repeat repairs and technician retention. Byron added that faster work has limited value if the same equipment keeps coming back.

Arrants called retention a direct measure of leadership effectiveness — constant vacancy-filling can hide hiring, onboarding or culture problems. The fix doesn't always require major programs: asking employees what frustrates them can surface manageable issues like misplaced protective equipment or missing supplies.

For fleets scaling past a thousand units, the panel's through-line holds: connect spending, repeat repairs, inspection results and technician development into one picture, and the data starts making sense.