Market Overview

 

Roll up doors have been used on work trucks for 20 years but in a very limited capacity. Whereas roll up doors are standard or options on all fire and emergency vehicles, they have only been options on a limited number of work trucks. Typically this is when a specific customer (i.e. Duke Energy, Pacific Gas and Electric, Cox Cable) has specified roll up doors (but generally not a specific brand). These are generally larger custom truck bodies and not “standard” work and utility truck bodies.

 

While roll up doors on fire and emergency vehicles are in the mature stage of the product life cycle, they are still in the growth stage in the work truck market even though they have been used somewhat in the past 20 years.

 

In the past several years as work truck manufacturers develop new body designs, roll up doors are increasingly added as an option. In some cases, roll up doors are now standard. A prime example is tow trucks and wreckers. When Jerr-Dan (an Oshkosh company) began switching from steel and aluminum bodies to poly bodies about 4 years ago they made roll up doors standard on all the new poly bodies.

 

More recently, Knapheide, the largest work truck body manufacturer in the country, began investigating roll up doors as an option on all of their standard bodies. Up until now, roll up doors were only used as options on their custom bodies and lubrication trucks. Knapheide manufactures several thousand bodies a year and initial estimates were a low EAU of 500 standard bodies would use roll up doors. At that starting point they would purchase 1600-2000 doors valued at $600K-$1M. Over the next five years that could ramp up to significantly higher percentages. And as the market leader offers rollup up doors on standard bodies, demand will be created for other manufacturers to follow.

 

Although roll up doors generally cost more than swing out doors (and this varies based on the type of swing out door), the benefits of roll up doors override the additional cost. These benefits are mainly safety and efficiency related. The loss of compartment space is a main factor in not using roll up doors. A new design that does not use a roller would gain great acceptance in the market and substantially increase the usage of roll up doors.

 

Also, virtually all doors on work trucks are satin anodized finished. There are very few painted doors. Those that are painted are generally white. In these cases, powder coating would offer better durability than wet paint.