The North American Chassis Pool Cooperative has acquired Pratt Industries Intermodal Chassis. Now named Pratt Intermodal Chassis, LLC., it operates as a subsidiary of NACPC.
NACPC now also owns the Pratt chassis manufacturing facility located in Niles, Mich., providing customers with a vertically integrated intermodal solution and NACPC with real-time insights and data about production, quantities and quality of equipment, the company says.
The facility currently can produce 5,000 chassis a year and NACPC plans to invest heavily in streamlining operations and ramping up production capabilities to produce up to 7,000 chassis in 2022.
“This acquisition sets NACPC – and our customers – up for success for years to come,” declared President Dave Manning, who also is President of Tennessee Commercial Warehouse, and former chairman of American Trucking Associations.
“We have struggled to meet our customers' chassis needs this year because of the lack of chassis production availability,” Manning said. “Owning our own chassis manufacturing company will allow us the ability to meet our customer’s needs.”
NACPC was created by Manning and 11 other carrier owners as a regional chassis pool in 2013, at a time when the cargo container chassis shortage was acute. This ongoing shortage has contributed to today’s supply chain crisis as well.
“This new chapter for NACPC gives us better control of the operations and logistics of providing premium chassis to our customers,” said Jeffrey Dudenhefer, NACPC executive vice president.
Manning added, “At this time, especially with the challenges the entire industry is facing, it made strategic sense for the company to bring chassis production under NACPC.”