Kenworth’s Bob Christensen sailing confidently into company’s future

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

10/10/2007

KIRKLAND, Wash. — Christopher Columbus and Bob Christensen have simething in common.

Yes, they may be separated by some 520 years and thousands of miles, but both would be considered visionaries by any standard as both rose to the top of the field in their chosen professions.

They were and are involved in the movement of commerce, Columbus locating new trade routes for Spain and in doing so discovering America, Christensen is general manager of Kenworth Truck Co. and vice president of PACCAR, of which Kenworth is a division.

They were and are customer-oriented: Columbus sailing on behalf of the leaders of Spain, Christensen always looking to the end user, the world’s truck drivers, for new ideas.

Both view those who work with them [at all levels] as key players in successful ventures.

It was one of the famed explorer’s men, not Columbus himself, who first spotted land that later became known as the New World early one morning.

And Christensen says, “one guy can’t do it all and a lot of people are a lot smarter than Bob.”

He’s also quick to point out those “lot of people” and himself have formed cohesive team that produces what he and the his co-workers proudly proclaim are “The World’s Best” trucks.

 “We build the most aerodynamic trucks, the most fuel efficient truck in the industry,” Christensen said recently in an interview with The Trucker at company headquarters here. “We’re introducing hybrid medium-duty vehicles to limit emissions and improve fuel efficiency. We’re a leader in alternative fuel in Southern California.

“Kenworth Clean Power is an environmentally conscious product. Our products are lighter, but they’re also stronger so they can carry more payload, so freight moves more efficiently. Our trucks last longer. Those are all things that contribute to the well-being of our environment.

“We’re a leader in the vocational market with products that help build the nation’s infrastructure, that build our buildings, and build roads. Our products are used to actually build the things that are important to people every day with arguably the least environmental impact of any OEM today.”

Christensen speaks like a man who’s been engrossed in trucking all his life, and in reality his primary association with trucking before he went to work for Kenworth was driving a gravel truck during the summer while he was attending college.

“My job as a guy from the summer hire list was to haul gravel in the smallest, dirtiest truck at the end of the line,” he recalled.

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Christensen graduated from the University of Washington and went to work for Boeing, earning his master’s while employed there.

One day he saw an ad in the newspaper for Kenworth [recruiters say your chances of finding an outstanding job through a newspaper ad is a very, very rare occurrence] and applied.

He started at Kenworth’s Seattle plant in the controller’s office and eventually became the controller. He went to PACCAR Parts in 1990, still in a finance function at first. Shortly afterwards, however, he moved over to the operating side, was responsible for aftermarket parts distribution facilities around the country and was involved in a lot of systems development activities.

Later, he became responsible for the sales and marketing functions and was Bill Jackson’s [recently named GM at Peterbilt, another PACCAR division] predecessor as general manager of PACCAR Parts.

“That was a very exciting time, because the company had purchased DAF in 1996 and we really started to move PACCAR Parts into a worldwide organization,” Christensen said. “That presented the opportunity to spend time in Europe and understand who those manufacturers are and how that market works and what those products represent.”

Then in 2002, he was asked to move back to Kenworth as the general manager.

He didn’t even hesitate.

“I was just so excited to run arguably the best brand in the industry,” he said. “I started with Kenworth. Loved the product. There was no question. Absolutely no question. I was pretty well prepared for it based on my prior experience in manufacturing, then in the aftermarket and really understanding the dealer’s side. That put me in a position to hit the ground running.”

He believes that today Kenworth, just as it was back in 1983, is on top of its game.

“The way to characterize it is that we are a very results-driven company and, fundamentally, it’s building the best truck and providing the diversity our customer base needs,” he said. “If you look at our product line, we’re in every segment of this business. We are heavy into the vocational business. We’re heavy into the pickup and delivery market. We’re very much a part of the over-the-road business. The challenge that Kenworth faces is not unlike what others in our business face and that is just the sheer complexity of managing product change through such product diversity.

“That was really the challenge at the time and it is still the challenge today: trying to make certain that we don’t lose, with the complexity of the vehicle, the significant customer advantage we provide to a large company, a small company, a dump-truck operator or an over-the- road customer.”

Customer, customer, customer.

Three key words in Christensen’s vocabulary.

He makes frequent use of the company’s contact with its most visible external customer — the men and women who drive Kenworth trucks — through the company’s 500-member Drivers’ Board, formed in 1992.

“We meet with our Drivers’ Board throughout the year, the most notable time being at the Mid-America Trucking Show,” Christensen said. “During the show we have a special session where we have some topics and they may have some topics and they’re generally really good sessions.”

In addition, Preston Feight, Kenworth’s director of product planning, has championed a new organization to define Kenworth’s future product plan.

“The engineers are sometimes tied up in the projects that they’re doing today. The marketing and sales people are often focused on the business of today,” Christensen said. “And often times we lose sight of where we can be tomorrow. And so Preston is leading the group and we’ve broken his function into basically three topic areas: one is over-the-road, the second is the vocational market; and the third the pickup and delivery segments.”

Then quarterly, Preston and each of those managers will get together with a customer council of about eight to 10 people. They’ll talk about future product needs, what’s going on in the business. “It’s not about selling trucks; it’s about what’s happening in their business. What we’re trying to do, then, is gain insight into how we can improve the product, how we can develop a new product for each of those customer segments, and that’s just been an invaluable process. And out of that comes really a more mature, consistent view of what our product plan needs to be in the future.”

And Christensen firmly believes that innovation — translated the future — is what makes Kenworth unique among OEMs.

“It’s our history of innovation,” he says. “We’re living it right now. Kenworth Clean Power is our latest innovation. It is a true key-off [not an APU] method to manage a driver’s comfort during hot and cold periods of the year. We’re the first to develop a proprietary system that we think is truly innovative, and the initial feedback we’ve received has been very, very positive. Clean Power just went into production in June and we’re really excited about its potential. The APU has been very valuable to customers, but it’s been an aftermarket-supplied feature, and emerging emissions rules increase the cost of APU installations with diesel particulate filters. So Kenworth has created a new innovation that provides factory-installed superior comfort without operating a diesel engine.

“Aerodynamics and light-weight vehicles have an innovation-rich history at Kenworth. The history of the company has been to build the lightest, most durable, most fuel-efficient vehicles. Our products, the T660, the T800, the W900L, the C500 in the oil industry, the 963 … they are the best in their segment across the playing field.”

To back up his point, Christensen points to the company’s numerous J.D. Power awards.

Kenworth recently achieved the highest ranking in customer satisfaction among Class 8 truck owners in the Over-The- Road, Pickup and Delivery and Vocational Segments, according to the new J.D. Power and Associates 2007 Heavy Duty Truck Customer Satisfaction Study released in August.

Kenworth is the first truck manufacturer to sweep all three since the study was introduced in 2003, Christensen noted.

It is the third consecutive year that Kenworth received both the Over-The-Road and Pickup and Delivery awards and at least three of the four Heavy-Duty awards bestowed annually. Christensen said the latest awards increased its total to 11 Heavy-Duty awards which is more than any other truck manufacturer.

The awards are in large part a result of Kenworth’s product-focused, performance-based company culture, Christensen said.

“I think it gets down to that,” he said. “It may be a little bit trite when we talk about Kenworth being the World’s Best, but that tagline has been there for a long, long time. and it defines how our employees and dealers conduct business.”

And what does Christensen believe Kenworth does to back up its claim?

“It’s our belief in our product.  Throughout the company, when you talk to engineers or to people in the factory, it’s not about being first to market, it’s not about being cheapest in the market,” he said. “It’s about providing the best solution. Often times that creates a premium in the initial price, but we think that’s because it’s the best, that the fuel economy is better, the maintenance is easier, the resale value is better and when you run the math, it’s the best truck to operate.”

Christensen uses a three-tiered approach to management to ensure the “belief in our product” remains strong.

“At leadership-training sessions, I like to talk about three things that are very important,” Christensen said. “One is that our employees need to understand our measurement systems because it helps to define what we think is important. It’s very important that employees understand how we are defining success, because that helps them stay guided in what they’re doing. It tells them they are on the playing field, not out of bounds.

“The second thing is that leaders need to be approachable. There is so much that can be learned outside of a meeting or outside of a formal conversation. And employees, suppliers, customers, they need to be able to say ‘I’m comfortable talking to that manager or that management team. I’m going to tell him what I think he needs to know.’ I think that’s very important. What that does is help us make a better decision.

“And a third leadership quality is developing perspective. I’ve been fortunate, as have many PACCAR employees, to be in different functional assignments in our careers. 

They say two heads are better than one. Well, if you can do different things in your career, you’re putting more heads on your shoulders. And ultimately that perspective provides a set of tools to make better decisions. And, really, if you look at why PACCAR has been successful, why Kenworth has been successful, I think it’s because we make better decisions.”

If innovation is the company’s history, it’s also its future, Christensen said.

“We want to continue to be an innovation leader that builds performance trucks,” he said. “We want to develop our dealer network so that it continues to be the best in North America. These products are becoming more complex. There are more computers, the chassis technology, the emissions technology, the certification requirements all require a very sophisticated dealer organization to support these products. And we think the Kenworth organization is the best, but want it to be better. I guess, to keep it succinct, we want to continue to be the World’s Best.”

In a New World discovered by Christopher Columbus, no less.