OSK Earnings Call

OperatorGreetings and welcome to the Oshkosh Corporation's Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press *0 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Pat Davidson, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for Oshkosh Corporation. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Pat DavidsonGood morning and thanks for joining us. Earlier today, we published our second quarter 2026 results. A copy of that release is available on our website at oshkoshcorp.com. Today's call is being webcast and is accompanied by a slide presentation which includes a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures that we will use during this call and is also available on our website. The audio replay and slide presentation will be available on our website for approximately 12 months. Please refer now to slide 2 of that presentation. Our remarks that follow, including answers to your questions, contain statements that we believe to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and other factors that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

Pat DavidsonThese risks and factors include, among others, factors that we listed in our release this morning and matters that we have described in our most recent Form 10-K and other filings we make with the SEC, as well as matters noted at our Investor Day in June 2025. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements which may not be updated until our next quarterly earnings conference call, if at all. Our presenters today are John Pfeifer, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt Field, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please turn to slide 3, and I'll turn it over to you, John.

John PfeiferGood morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. In the second quarter, we delivered consolidated sales of $2.9 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $2.87. We continue to benefit from growth in our Access segment with strong order intake of $1.5 billion. Additionally, we have robust backlogs at our Transport and Vocational segments, and we're focused on increasing production, which is foundational to delivering our 2028 goals. We are building momentum and remain confident in our ability to deliver on our Investor Day targets. Within our Vocational segment, we are continuing actions to modernize our fire truck manufacturing and expand production to better serve strong customer demand and support long-term growth. Over the past quarter, we have implemented production changes to improve throughput. To support these changes, we are implementing new in-plant material flow processes that shift from reliance on individuals and experience to standardized modern process flows that will support our continued transformation to high-flow production lines.

John PfeiferAs a result of these changes, we expect to produce and ship fewer fire trucks this year than we previously planned. However, the work we are doing positions us well for 2027 and 2028. As a result of our revised expectations for production this year, we now expect full-year adjusted earnings per share in the range of $11. Across the company, we continue to hear a common theme from customers who are looking for solutions that are safe, intuitive, productive, and maximize fleet uptime. We are investing in AI-enabled technologies, autonomy, and connectivity that are shaping the airport of the future, the job site of the future, the neighborhood of the future, and the battlefield of the future. Please turn to slide 5, and we'll continue to review some highlights since our last call. As expected, Our Access segment delivered double-digit operating income margins with strong Q2 sales in a dynamic environment.

John PfeiferWe now expect full-year Access segment revenue to grow compared to 2025, an improvement from our original expectation for a modest decline. Large infrastructure investments and mega projects remain important sources of demand, and our newest products, including micro-sized scissor lifts and ClearSky Smart Fleet connected technologies continue to resonate with customers. We remain focused on managing the business with discipline, improving price-cost dynamics, driving operational productivity, and innovating our products and services. These innovations will drive the job site of the future, where we see tremendous promise in bringing autonomous AI-enabled solutions to construction sites. Orders in the quarter were, were strong at $1.5 billion, resulting in a book-to-bill ratio of 1.1. We enter the second half of the year with good visibility supported by $2 billion backlog at the end of the quarter.

John PfeiferMega projects are continuing to drive demand for our access equipment, and we are working to ensure we have the inventory and production flexibility to support the demand. Turning to slide 6 in our vocational segment. Backlog and demand for fire apparatus and airport products provides excellent visibility and supports our investment in our manufacturing operations to drive long-term growth. We are making meaning— meaningful progress in modernizing our manufacturing operations and implementing the changes needed to improve material flow and assembly efficiency. These initiatives represent a transformation of our manufacturing operations for fire trucks. And while production throughput is improving more gradually than we initially expected in the near term, these steps remain the right actions to reduce lead times and better serve our customers. Demand for Oshkosh AeroTech remains strong as airports continuing— continue investing in expansion and modernization.

John PfeiferOnce again, order intake during the quarter was solid, particularly for passenger boarding bridges, with key wins in Chicago, Denver, and Philadelphia. In addition, we continue to advance our vision for Airport of the Future, including testing an autonomous AI-enabled ground support robot at Grand Rapids Airport in the quarter. Refuse collection vehicle sales were lower than last year, as we previously discussed. Even amidst lower sales, the quality of our products has resulted in notable recent orders, including a significant order with the Sanitation Department of New York. Overall, we believe the long-term outlook for our vocational segment remains strong. Our backlog and market position continue to provide an excellent foundation for future growth, and we are confident in achieving our long-range targets. Please turn to slide 7. In the transport segment, we continue to ramp production of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle.

John PfeiferWe are excited to see more of our vehicles serving postal carriers in communities across the country. The fleet has now surpassed 35 million miles, and feedback from both the United States Postal Service— and its drivers remains positive, reinforcing the safety, productivity, and reliability benefits of the platform. Our defense business also continued to build momentum during the quarter. Participation at the Eurosatory exhibition in France highlighted the growing interest we are seeing from both existing and potential customers. As defense priorities continue to evolve globally, We believe Oshkosh is well positioned to leverage our engineering capabilities, manufacturing scale, and proven mobility platforms to, to pursue additional opportunities in both domestic and international markets. During the quarter, we received orders from the U.S. and international customers, including a $142 million order for the FMTV-A2 program, and a $92 million order supporting the United States Marine Corps ROGUE Fires platform, which combines next-generation autonomy with the protection, mobility, speed, and off-road capability Marines rely on in harsh environments.

John PfeiferThese awards reinforce the confidence our customers place in Oshkosh Defense while providing additional visibility, visibility beyond 2026 for these products. I'll hand it over to Matt to review our financial results and provide additional details on our outlook.

Matt FieldThanks, John. Please turn to slide 8. Consolidated sales for the second quarter of $2.9 billion increased $183 million or 6.7% compared to the same quarter last year. The increase primarily reflected improved sales volume and pricing. Adjusted operating income was $258 million, down from $313 million in the prior year, primarily due to unfavorable mix and higher manufacturing overhead costs, which in part continues to reflect our investments for future production, partially offset by higher sales volume. Free cash flow for the quarter was $348 million, a significant improvement compared to $49 million last year. Our strong free cash flow reflected continued discipline in managing working capital, particularly related to inventory, as well as higher customer advances. Our expectation for cash conversion remains strong for the year. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 667,000 shares of our stock for $92 million.

Matt FieldTurning to our segment results on slide 9, Access second quarter sales of $1.4 billion were up 9.4% from last year. The increase was driven by higher sales volume and improved pricing. As John mentioned, demand is improving. We delivered a book-to-bill ratio of 1.1 during the quarter, more than double the second quarter last year, as robust Q2 orders followed strong activity in the first quarter. Access achieved a solid double-digit adjusted operating income margin of 11.3%, which was lower than last year in part due to adverse product and customer mix. As expected, price-cost dynamics also remained unfavorable compared with last year, primarily due to tariff costs. As we've previously discussed, even though tariffs were announced in the second quarter last year,, we did not see the cost impact until later in 2025. For the year, we still expect to be price-cost neutral. Vocational sales of $967 million were relatively flat compared to last year as lower volume, primarily refuse and recycling vehicles, more than offset improved pricing.

Matt FieldFiretruck shipments were roughly in line with last year. Despite lower volume, The Vocational segment delivered an adjusted operating income margin of 13.5% as adverse sales mix and higher manufacturing overhead costs, including our investments in Pierce facilities, were partially offset by favorable price-cost dynamics. Transport segment sales increased $57 million or 12% to $536 million in the quarter, primarily due to higher sales volume. Delivery vehicle revenue grew by $155 million to $262 million, more than offsetting the decrease in defense volume. Delivery represented nearly half of transport segment sales during the quarter, and delivery revenue grew more than 20% sequentially compared to the first quarter of 2026. As expected, defense revenue was lower than last year. As a reminder, In the second quarter of 2025, we were still building domestic JLTVs, with the last units built in May 2025.

Matt FieldTransport segment operating income was $16 million, down $2 million compared with last year, reflecting adverse mix as well as higher warranty and manufacturing overhead costs, which were partially offset by a favorable one-time item totaling $17 million related to the NGDV program. We expect transport operating margin to grow in the back half of the year as we continue to transition out of past fixed-price contracts, ramp up NGDV production, and expect to receive an additional NGDV order. Turning to our expectations for 2026 on slide 10. As John mentioned earlier, we are updating our outlook with full-year adjusted EPS now expected to be in the range of $11. While our outlook for Access demand is improving, as we have stated, the more moderate pace of improvement for fire truck throughput has reduced our expectations by approximately $0.50. As we execute fire truck production plans, anticipate receiving an additional order for NGDVs, increase NGDV production, and build on revised defense contracts, we expect that our results in Q4 will be stronger than Q3.

Matt FieldWe expect that this Q4 momentum carries forward into 2027 and beyond as we work towards our 2028 targets. We still expect free cash flow of $550 to $650 million, unchanged from our prior guidance. With that, I'll turn it back over to John for some closing comments.

John PfeiferAcross Oshkosh, we continue to invest in technologies that make a difference to the everyday hero doing essential work in communities and create enduring value for customers. Whether through connected equipment, autonomy, artificial intelligence, or electrification, we believe our Innovate, Serve, Advance strategy continues to position Oshkosh to shape the future of job sites, airports, neighborhoods, and battlefields of the future. To reiterate, we remain confident in our plans to achieve our 2028 financial targets. I'll turn it back to you, Pat, for the Q&A.

Pat DavidsonThanks, John. I'd like to remind everyone to please limit your questions to one plus a follow-up. Please stay disciplined on your follow-up question. After the follow-up, we ask that you rejoin the queue if you have additional questions. Operator, please begin the Q&A session.

OperatorThank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.

OperatorThank you. Our first question comes from the line of David Raso with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

David RasoHi, thank you. Trying to figure out the vocational. Sounds like that 50-cent comment. Just to be clear, is there upside to Access and vocational was taken down more than 50 cents? Just making sure. I mean, it sounds like you obviously bumped up the total revenue. I just wanted to be clear because it kind of sounded like vocational was 50 cents. I assume it's more than 50 cents and Access has upside. I just wanted to clarify that.

Matt FieldMorning, David. Thanks for joining. Yeah, that's the right way to think about it fundamentally is with the more moderate pace of production, that more than offsets the upside in Access, which was the revision to the guide.

David RasoAnd related to that, the Access upside, I know customer mix is important, price-cost is important. How are you thinking about the margins in Access from previously? Just how much can we think of the incremental profitability from the higher volume? Thank you.

Matt FieldSure. I mean, over the year, that incrementality should improve as we improve our price-cost dynamics. That's the kind of the general way I would think about it.

Pat DavidsonThanks, David.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Tami Zakaria with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Tami ZakariaHi, good morning. Thank you so much. Question on access. Can you remind us where the industry access volumes you expect to be end of this year versus the prior peak, peak levels? What I'm trying to understand is where do you expect the industry to end this year versus the prior peak?

John PfeiferTough. First of all, good morning, Tami. Tough for me to say where the overall industry is going to end up this year. I mean, I can give you some, some context on where we are. I mean, the industry right now is being driven primarily by megaprojects. Megaprojects from infrastructure to, you know, data centers, which we all hear about every day. And many other big mega projects, which really what's driving a lot of demand right now. And, and for, for the most part, that's driven, that's served by the big national rental companies because they've got the big fleets in order to serve it. So that's a good, it's a good thing. It's going to go on for a long, long time as far as we can see right now. The kind of private, general or non-res construction segments kind of just plodding along. You know, there's a lot of different segments in that, and that's a huge marketplace for us. We expect that that will start to improve at some point in the future.

John PfeiferHard to call exactly when. Some metrics say it's going to improve by the end of the year in the, in the fourth quarter, or some say early 2027. But that's even going to just boost the demand that we're seeing even further, because right now it's just kind of plodding along. But overall, we're seeing a really nice improving demand environment for access equipment.

Tami ZakariaUnderstood. That's very helpful color. And I apologize if I missed it, but could you comment on the 3Q EPS expectation versus the $2.87 you did in 2Q? I'm trying to understand what 3Q might look like versus 4Q.

Matt FieldYeah, so as we said on the call, 4Q we think will be high relative to our normal seasonality. That's really driven, as we both have on the slides and said on the script, driven by firetruck production, building under the new price contracts on defense, NGDV production, and then the expectation for an NGDV order. All of that we expect in Q4.

Tami ZakariaUnderstood. Thank you.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Steven Volkmann with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Pat DavidsonSteve, you might be on mute.

OperatorMr. Volkmann, your line is live.

Stephen VolkmannYep. I think I got it now.

Pat DavidsonThere we go.

John PfeiferHey, Steve.

Stephen VolkmannI'm a bit of a slow learner. I apologize. So I was going to ask you if we could dive into Access a little bit, and I'm trying to think about the two margin drivers that you talked about, the mix and the price-cost. Do those get sort of sequentially better each quarter, or, you know, maybe not until '27? I don't know. How should we think about those two mix drivers, mix and price-cost drivers?

Matt FieldYeah, difficult to say exactly on mix. As John talked about, it's, it's not exactly clear when we'll see broad-based recovery outside of megaprojects. That obviously affects customer mix. In terms of price-cost, we would expect that to improve, in part because, you know, once we have, once we have tariffs in the rearview mirror in terms of a year-over-year comp, that'll improve our year-over-year price-cost. But also just through pricing activity as well as cost reductions that we've as we've talked about on prior calls.

Stephen VolkmannGreat. And John, on refuse cycle, is this kind of a peak and we should expect a couple of years of something a little lower, or is this a lull in the action, as it were?

John PfeiferWell, the— Steve, the refuse business has been kind of down in 2026. I mean, we said it was going to be down. It has actually been down. In some industrial sectors, you know, we're seeing customers remain cautious on CapEx until they see a little bit more certainty on the macroeconomic future. That's certainly been the case with customers in the refuse business. But the good news is that overall it's a good market. Fleets remain aged, and we all know that the generation of refuse and recycle— recycling remains unchanged. So we certainly expect that this business, even though it's been a little bit down in 2026, is going to return to a little bit more normal state maybe as we get into 2027.

Stephen VolkmannPerfect. Thank you.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Jamie Cook with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Jamie CookHi, good morning. Sorry, just a couple follow-ups. Matt, again, on the third quarter versus the Fourth quarter, given the items that you called out that are heavily fourth quarter weighted, it sounds like Q3 could potentially be flat to down relative to last year. I'm just wondering if that's the right way to think about it. And then also, my second question is within transport. I think before you were saying that revenues of about $2.5 billion, which I'm assuming that's still the same given you didn't really clarify that. It just implies a pretty healthy ramp. So is that still the right way to think about it and just your confidence on when we get the NGDV award and how material that is to the, to the guide for the year? Thank you.

Matt FieldHi, Jamie. Roughly, I think that's the right way to think about it in, in broad frameworks. In terms of the order, you know, we're, we're assuming that's in Q4. I do that just because that's when the fiscal years are for, for the government. It could be Q3, but for planning purposes, we're assuming Q4. And we have ongoing dialogues with USPS to make sure we have our supply chain ready to support their production.

Jamie CookOkay. But to the first comment, EPS in the third quarter could be flat to down. You're confirming that?

Matt FieldI think that's the right way to think about it with strong Q4 and where we are in our production cycle.

Jamie CookOkay. And then transport still $2.5 billion for the year?

Matt FieldBallpark. About.

Jamie CookOkay. All right, cool. Thank you.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Jerry Revich with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Jerry RevichYes, hi. Good morning, everybody. I wanted to ask John, just on your comment on being on track for 2028 targets, you know, for aerial platforms in particular, can you just talk about how much of a step forward you folks expect to take in 2027 to bridge the gap we're running now versus the '28 targets and your level of confidence on price cost to get there.

John PfeiferYeah, so I'll provide some commentary on the market and where we think it's headed. So we feel really good about where the access market is right now. We certainly feel better today than we did in January. As you know, that's what we've been talking about. But we also feel really good about where it's headed. And there's kind of two things happening. Number one, You know, I always say pay attention to our backlog. Backlog is building. That's good, of course. And I always say we got to pay attention to utilization rates, equipment in the market and how much is it utilized. And the utilization rates are really, really strong. That's both our own data as well as what our customers are telling us. You've seen publicly traded customers already report really strong utilization. So you got utilization improving and really healthy. And we've got backlogs that are building, couple that with the fact that the boom category is still aged.

John PfeiferSo we have need for, for growth in boom equipment in the market, and we have aged boom equipment. So there's continued need to replace boom equipment. Those are all really healthy signs that point towards a strong recovery in the market. We think that that goes at least through '28 and beyond with, with all the activity. Mega projects are not going to slow down. And we have again the private non-res market that right now is kind of muddling along, but there's a lot of signs saying that, that at some point in the near future that's going to pick up as well. So just the context here, we feel, we feel like we're in a good spot. We've done a lot of really strong work to position our manufacturing plants as well to be able to serve the market in, in the recovery that we're in.

Jerry RevichAnd agreed on the recovery for sure. I'm just wondering your level of confidence on the ability to push price. It feels like you might need something like a mid-single-digit type price increases given the timing of tariffs and refunds this year and just general inflation. And John, I'm wondering, obviously it's early for '27 orders, but what's your level of confidence on being able to price ahead of inflation, given, given the backdrop you described?

John PfeiferWell, the short answer is we're confident that we can do that. I'll give you a little bit more context. I mean, we've been working for the last year on positioning our cost in the, in the context of geopolitical tariff environments, really making sure that we're responding to that. We do a lot of tariff engineering. We think that we're going to, we're going to get the fruits of that labor as the market continues to recover. But we always try to pay attention to cost first. How do we minimize the cost impact to our customer? That's always job one. We will have to pass some of it on, and we have done some of that, and we're confident that because we're so intensely focused on the cost side, that as we pass along what we need to to customers, that that'll be accepted. And so we're confident that we'll continue to do that, and I think that history has shown that we have the ability to do that.

Jerry RevichThank you.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Mig Dobre with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Joe GrabowskiHey, good morning, guys. It's Joe Grabowski on for Mig this morning.

John PfeiferMorning.

Matt FieldMorning.

Pat DavidsonGood morning.

Joe GrabowskiGood morning. So my first question, you mentioned the fire truck shipments were roughly in line with last year and you're making moves to improve the production flow. When do you think you'll start to see the benefits of those improvements that you're working on right now. I know you mentioned 2027, 2028, but is there a chance that we'll start to see some of the benefits later in this year, or kind of when do you think those will kind of come through?

John PfeiferYeah, you should start to see it in the second half of this year for sure. You know, I'll give you a little context. This is the most complex product that we produce, the municipal fire truck, and we're really transforming how we make it. You know, we say we're going from bay build to high flow production lines, which is a, which is a big transformation in the manufacturing operations. And we're moving through that transition right now. We're really confident in the steps that we're taking. We've got the absolute best people on it. That includes, you know, expertise from third parties where we need it. We have done this before. We did it at McNeilus, and I could give you other examples beyond that, which is, which were all very, very successful. But what it's going to result in is a really resilient production flow for fire trucks where we can sprint. Right now we need to be sprinting because we got huge backlogs.

John PfeiferBut when we're in normal sort of steady state production, we'll be super efficient. And so we feel really good about what we're doing.

Joe GrabowskiGot it. Okay. Thank you for that update. And then my follow-up question, if you could just update us on any impact on your facilities from the severe weather in the Appleton area. Area yesterday.

John PfeiferYeah, it was, it was a tough event for this area. I mean, luckily we, with, we came out pretty good. We had people impacted in terms of homes damaged and things like that, and of the 7,000 people we have up here, we had one that was injured. So we're paying very close attention to that person, but Operations are intact. A couple of power outages here and there. Nothing material that would concern business performance.

Joe GrabowskiOkay. Thank you.

Pat DavidsonThanks, Joe.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Angel Castillo with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Angel CastilloHi. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to go back to the fiscal year, I guess, '26 bridge. I just wanted to understand that a little bit better, if you could provide any more color. Maybe just quantifying, I guess, how much more kind of upside you see from an Access perspective in terms of the guide on the EPS front. And then as we think about the segments, I guess Transport had a $16.6 million one-time item. Was that contemplated in the guide or is that kind of an incremental factor that maybe doesn't repeat and would, I guess, imply a little bit more weakness in Vocational? And then just layering on top of that, anything in terms of refunds or tariffs that was or wasn't included in the guidance? Could you just kind of quantify that as we think about 2Q and the remaining quarters?

Matt FieldYou packed a lot into that question there, Angel.

Angel CastilloI might—.

Matt FieldYes, I—. —Ask you for some of your follow-ups. You got a lot in there. So all those things were contemplated in the quarter as we were looking for both the guide and the year, you know, whether they happen in the second quarter in some cases or later in the year. Were up for debate, but generally speaking, they were all contemplated.

Matt FieldYeah, what else did you have questions on specifically in that? You packed so much into that question that generally speaking, the one-timers were kind of understood at the beginning of the quarter.

Angel CastilloGot it. So I guess I just wanted to understand those one-time items and refunds were already contemplated, I think is what you're saying, so, and just if you could size the refunds was, I guess, the initial question. Yeah.

Matt FieldSo on tariffs, remember what we talked about last quarter is we felt where we were with the 232 and other elements relative to our IEEPA refunds, we were balanced for the year. We still feel that that's roughly the case. In the quarter, we had about $40 to $50 million net impact on tariffs, all in line with our expectations for the full year. As we talked about last quarter, we had first quarter about $13 million recovery. That increased. Some of it was our direct flow-through to Q2. Some of that was customer. And so, so that increased to call it roughly $20 million for the quarter. So all the numbers roughly in line with where we were expecting last quarter.

Matt FieldSo not a lot of surprises.

Angel CastilloGot it. Thank you. And then maybe just one on 3Q. I know you didn't provide a specific number, but you talked about kind of flat to down sequentially. Sequentially. Can you just talk about that at the segment level? You know, where would you kind of anticipate the potential to increase production, deliver more units versus where is it more about, you know, just more price cost and mix factors? And, you know, just trying to understand that and particularly as we go into the fourth quarter, kind of that ramp.

Matt FieldYeah, Angel, just to clarify, Tami's question was on a year-over-year basis, not on a sequential basis. So in terms of Q3, Q4, Q4 ramp, again, it's fire truck production, as, as John mentioned, that's sequential Q3 and then into Q4. And then in Q4, we get into NGDV production, the additional order, as well as we move through the year, we build more on the new revised price contracts in defense.

Angel CastilloYeah, thank you. Thanks, Angel.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Steven Fisher with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Steven FisherThanks. Good morning. You guys had cited higher warranty costs in the transport segment. To what extent is that related to the NGDV, and can you quantify it and maybe frame the potential for that to improve over time? I guess the bigger picture question here also is is just on the transport margins. I think you talked to Jerry about 28% in Access, but just curious how confident we can be at this point that this transport segment still has double-digit margin potential.

John PfeiferYeah, Steve, thanks for the question. First of all, let me just clarify, the warranty was a one-time— it was on a defense program. It was an engine-related issue. So one-time, that That's all I'll say about it. I don't think it warrants more comment. The defense business, though, is, you know, it's getting to a point where we're getting new contract pricing on really important programs. And we have NGDV getting to full rate production. And the expectation with us and our customer, the United States Postal Service, is they'll be yet another order in the second half of the year, likely in the fourth quarter. And that gives us the ability to understand what their, their go-forward mix is, and we can prime the supply chain and make sure that we can supply efficiently. And, and that's part of the expectation for the fourth quarter. But that contract pricing, full rate production on NGDVs, and an order coming in with 606 accounting, that, that's what takes it to a much better margin level.

Steven FisherOkay, that's helpful. And then can you talk about some of the positive price versus cost dynamics within vocational? Was that all price that was already in backlog, or were you able to capture additional cost recovery as costs have been rising in general?

Matt FieldPrimarily that, that pricing is in backlog. Most of it is, is already defined. There are a couple markets where we have shorter lead times that have kind of pricing here and there, but for the most part, that's all in backlog.

Steven FisherOkay. Thank you.

Pat DavidsonThanks, Steve.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Chad Dillard with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question.

Chad DillardHey, good morning, guys. Question for you on your delivery business. Hey, good morning. So first of all, can you give a little bit more color on the orders and backlog trends in the quarter for delivery? And then secondly, I think it's hitting in the fourth quarter, but can you size the cumulative catch-up adjustment that's embedded in your guidance?

John PfeiferSo you're talking about delivery, right?

Chad DillardCorrect.

John PfeiferYeah. So, you know, the, the, in the quarter, you know, we were working off the large order that we received initially plus a supplemental order to that. So we didn't have any orders in the quarter We expect an order in the fourth quarter, and we continue to work off that— the order and mix that we've already received. But this is a fantastic program for us and for the United States Postal Service. Really enhances the USPS's ability to deliver e-commerce efficiently and effectively. As I said on the prepared remarks, there They're coming to every neighborhood around you. If you haven't seen one yet, you will probably in the very near future. We feel great about the program. And again, the order that we expect to receive in the second half is, is part of our guidance in the second half.

Chad DillardGot it. Okay. And then what's the new shape of the fire truck capacity ramp? When do you expect to hit full rate production? And then can you just frame the— what that looks like versus your, your production rates today?

John PfeiferYeah, so we expect this year will be about a 10% increase, and that's a material amount of fire— additional fire trucks coming off the line. But in total, we're, we're expecting to get a— get to a 25 to 30% production rate increase. So we expect to be increasing production in Q3, yet again in Q4. And as we go through 2027. And that's all really, really important. It's why we talk so much about moving to transformational high-flow production lines that are much more efficient and allow us to sprint more because we need more fire trucks right now, but they'll allow us to be really efficient in the future in steady-state production environments. So it's, you know, we're continuing to drive more output on our fire truck production capabilities.

Chad DillardGot it. Thank you.

Pat DavidsonThanks, Chad.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Kyle Menges with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Kyle MengesGood morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just digging into vocational a little bit more and the fire truck production ramp. I'm just curious Um, what have been some of the main challenges to hitting the production targets, um, and just your confidence level in those challenges, challenges, um, alleviating over time?

John PfeiferYeah, so I'll, I'll, I hit, hit on it a little bit in my prepared remarks. It's about material flow, right? Because when you go, you go to a bay build to a more high-flow production environment with different workstations and you're organizing production very differently. This is a very complicated vehicle. There's thousands and thousands of parts, both from our internal component plants as well as our many great suppliers that have to come together at the right time and at the right place. And when you re-engineer all of that, we know, we know what we're doing. We have done this before. We're not reinventing anything here. We have to go through a lot of very methodical work and make sure that it's right to get to the level of production and that we expect. And sometimes when you're in the near term, it's hard to predict in, you know, the next week what you're going to do. But it's, you know, we know that we're doing the right thing for the long-term health of this business.

John PfeiferBut material flow is a big— is probably a big thing to think about when you have to reroute everything that comes to the line.

Kyle MengesGot it. That's helpful. And then just would be helpful to hear a little bit of color on the updated Vocational outlook relative to your, I guess, last quarter expectations where you had effectively taken out $100 to $200 million from the initial top line guide and then guided the margins to, I'd say, about 16% to 17%. Just curious what the top line and margin range could look like now for Vocational for the full year.

Matt FieldYeah, we're not going to get into the specific details, but I think the way to think about it with the revised production plan, our long-term target remains 16 to 18% for vocational. I think we'll be below the low end of that a little bit. But, you know, all, all headed in the right direction for 2027 and 2028.

John PfeiferThis is a great business, though. I mean, we have great positions in the industries we serve. You know, this is a high-margin business long-term. It's a really good business.

Kyle MengesGot it. Thank you.

Pat DavidsonThanks, Kyle.

OperatorOur next question comes from the line of Mike Shlisky with DA Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Mike ShliskyHey guys, good morning. Good morning. So you've got a lot of fire trucks— good morning, guys. There are a lot of fire trucks still left to build in the backlog, but how are fire truck orders progressing today, maybe compared to a normal or maybe average year? Is it still a pretty robust environment for brand new truck orders?

John PfeiferYeah, I think that the environment right now is fine. You know, we look at the industry being in the, you know, in the 4,000s of units per year, kind of the run rate. It peaked at about 6,000, which was unusual, right? That happened kind of coming out of the pandemic. But we think that a fire truck industry that has somewhere in the 4,000s of units a year, that's a healthy state. That's, you know, that's something that will be very good for us. You know, remember, fire trucks are aged out there. We might have had a big blip of orders, but the fire trucks are still aged. So we think this is a long-term healthy market in the 4,000s.

Mike ShliskyGreat. Can I also turn to the pipeline in defense? Obviously lots of headlines around conflicts around the world. You're starting to hear about companies that don't normally participate in defense in any kind of large way being asked to by the federal government to kind of get themselves ready or prepare for new orders. Some of these might not be products that Oshkosh does directly, but I'm just curious as to your pipeline of orders and whether— or sorry, or your pipeline contracts and what you could win. Going forward given the heavily— heavier amount of armed conflicts out there?

John PfeiferYeah, thanks for the question. Well, we certainly see a lot of momentum in our defense business right now. I'm going to start with our leadership team. We've got a leadership team which has a combination of new leadership talent with existing leadership talent, and we're really focused on integrating our commercial capabilities because, you know, we're about 10% defense, about 90% commercial, and we're able to take commercial technology and integrate it with our defense capability where it makes sense. That's something the DOD is really, really wanting us to do. I can, you know, I talked about some of the near-term orders that we've received. The FMTV-A2, $140+ million, and the ROGUE Fires, almost $100 million. ROGUE Fires is really interesting. You know, this is something that is very unique. Not everyone can do it. It's an example of why we do what we do, where we take a JLTV, we make it autonomous, we integrate a weapons platform on it, and it gives the Marines versatility that they absolutely love on the battlefield.

John PfeiferSo when you look at our allies around the world, we're seeing continued momentum there as well. And we feel pretty pretty good about where this business is headed right now.

Mike ShliskyThanks.

Pat DavidsonThanks, Mike.

OperatorAs a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Barger with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Steve BargerThanks. Good morning. John, in access, I heard you say activity is being driven more by the nationals right now. But you also said utilization rates are running high and fleet age is extended. Do you have a view on when the independents could be back in the market in a bigger way?

John PfeiferI do. You know, I, you know, we think that maybe by as early as the end of the calendar year, sometime in '27, you know, it's been muddling along for quite a while, this kind of private non-res environment, which is a gigantic market that we serve, has a lot of different subsegments in it. But, but when you look at, uh, where we, we pay attention to an aggregation of, um, economic metrics that are directly related to non-residence construction. And, and so when I make my comments, I'm really making them grounded in those, the aggregate of those metrics that we look at. Which says maybe by the end of the year it'll start to improve. But, you know, that right now our, our guidance is built upon what we are seeing today, which is really based upon the big mega projects and the demand that those are pulling in terms of our equipment.

Steve BargerYeah, but either way, from where you started the year in terms of outlook to where you are now, it seems like there's positive momentum.

John PfeiferYes. Absolutely.

Steve BargerAnd then great to hear about that big New York order for McNeilus. Is that takeover business or a new relationship, or is there any more backstory on taking that, you know, sizable order in a generally quiet year for refuse?

John PfeiferUm, well, it's certainly good news for us. It's, it's kind of, I'll call it an expanded, uh, uh, win for us in, in New York. That's what I'll call it.

Steve BargerYeah.

Steve BargerAll right. Thanks.

OperatorThis concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Davidson for closing remarks.

Pat DavidsonThank you. And thanks everybody for joining us today. We'll be at several conferences in August and September. We look forward to speaking with you. Take care and have a good rest of the day.

OperatorLadies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.