OSK - NYSE
Oshkosh Corporation
OSK·NYSE
$134.05
+0.36%IndustrialsIndustrial - Machinery
Oshkosh Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies worldwide. The company's Access Equipment segment provides aerial work platforms and telehandlers for use in various construction, industrial, institutional, and general maintenance applications. This segment also offers rental fleet loans and leases, and floor plan and retail financing through third-party funding arrangements; towing and recovery equipment; carriers and wreckers; equipment installation services; and chassis and service parts sales. Its Defense segment provides heavy, medium, and light tactical wheeled vehicles and related services for the department of defense. The company's Fire & Emergency segment offers custom and commercial firefighting vehicles and equipment; and commercial fire apparatus and emergency vehicles, such as pumpers, aerial platform, ladder and tiller trucks, tankers, rescue vehicles, wild land rough terrain response vehicles, mobile command and control centers, bomb squad vehicles, hazardous materials control vehicles, and other emergency response vehicles. This segment also provides aircraft rescue and firefighting, snow removal, and broadcast vehicles, as well as command trucks, and military simulator shelters and trailers. Its Commercial segment offers front-and rear-discharge concrete mixers for the concrete ready-mix industry; refuse collection vehicles and related components to commercial and municipal waste haulers; and field service vehicles and truck-mounted cranes for the construction, equipment dealer, building supply, utility, tire service, railroad, and mining industries. Oshkosh Corporation provides its products through direct sales representatives, dealers, and distributors. The company was formerly known as Oshkosh Truck Corporation and changed its name to Oshkosh Corporation in February 2008. Oshkosh Corporation was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
At a Glance
Live SnapshotMarket Cap$8.36B
EPS10.0800
P/E Ratio13.30
Earnings Date07/31/2026
Earnings Call Transcript
OSK • 2026 • Q1
Operator
Greetings, welcome to Oshkosh Corporation 2026 1st quarter results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone requires 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, Patrick Davidson, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for Oshkosh Corporation. Thank you.
Patrick Davidson
Good morning, and thanks for joining us. Earlier today, we published our first 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.
Patrick Davidson
These 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 Pfeifer
Thank you, Pat. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We continue to make progress on our long-term goals in each of our businesses. Customer engagement around our new products and technologies has been strong, as demonstrated at CES and the many trade shows where we have participated in 2026. The actions we are taking across the company this year are foundational to delivering our targets for 2028, and we remain confident in the future we are shaping for those who do the toughest work in our communities. First quarter earnings per share were modestly below the expectations we outlined on our last call, where we indicated EPS would be approximately half of the prior year's amount. For the quarter, we delivered consolidated sales of approximately $2.3 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $0.85.
John Pfeifer
Performance in the quarter compared with our expectations was impacted by fewer fire truck shipments in our vocational segment, where a number of planned customer pickups were not completed, even though we are still making progress on increasing production. Our outlook for the company has not changed, and we are maintaining our full-year consolidated guidance. Demand across our segments remains solid, and we have good visibility for the remainder of the year. We are focused on execution and continue to expect improved performance as the year progresses, and we remain confident that we are taking the right steps to drive positive business performance, not just this year, but for the long term. Please turn to slide 5, and we will review some highlights since our last call. Demand in our access segment is improving, supported by mega projects, including data center-related construction.
John Pfeifer
Orders in the quarter exceeded $1.5 billion, resulting in a book-to-bill ratio of 1.6. Customer engagement remains high. We are entering the summer construction season with a backlog of $1.8 billion at the end of the quarter. At the same time, demand continues to be uneven across end markets. While mega projects remain a source of strength, broader non-residential construction activity continues to be impacted by macroeconomic factors. Against this backdrop, our focus on innovation and productivity continues to resonate with customers. At the ConExpo show in March, our JLG team showcased all-new boom lifts and our new 26-foot micro-sized scissor lift, all designed to improve productivity, serviceability, and versatility. Our new boom lifts directly address key customer needs by reducing machine weight and increasing basket capacity.
John Pfeifer
Our micro-sized scissor lifts, which are seeing strong adoption in data center applications, provide a safe and more efficient way to access confined spaces. We also highlighted advancements incorporating autonomy, including Canvas robotics for drywall finishing and our robotic welding end effector, both of which generated strong customer interest as companies look for solutions to address labor constraints and improve job site efficiency. While we are encouraged by strong order activity and backlog, we continue to operate in a dynamic cost environment. We are actively managing the impact of tariffs through supply chain and manufacturing actions. We expect to maintain a competitive cost position as the industry leader. Overall, we remain confident in the long-term outlook for the Access segment and our ability to execute through the cycle as we manage our costs and deliver attractive margins over time. Turning to Slide 6.
John Pfeifer
Demand across our Vocational Segment remains healthy, with a strong backlog of $6.6 billion. In the quarter, we increased fire truck production year-over-year, although shipments were below our expectations. This was driven by a number of factors, including weather and travel-related disruptions. We are focused on modernizing and improving production flow and removing bottlenecks to improve lead times, and we are making progress. We expect further improvements in the quarters ahead, supported by increased process efficiency and targeted capital investments. On the innovation front, we continue to see strong customer engagement. At the FDIC show in Indianapolis, Pierce showcased the capabilities and quality of our fire apparatus, along with ClearSky connected vehicle technology, which enhances fleet visibility, uptime, and coordination for fire departments in the field. At McNeilus, we launched our AI-enabled material contamination detection technology as part of our McNeilus IQ platform.
John Pfeifer
This solution leverages artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to identify contaminants in real time during collection, helping customers improve efficiency and sustainability. We expect to continue expanding our McNeilus IQ offering with additional technologies over time. Oshkosh AeroTech continues to perform well, supported by strong demand from airports investing in expansion and modernization. Order intake in the quarter was solid, particularly for air cargo loaders and jetway passenger boarding bridges, with key wins in Reno, Orlando and Nashville. Our jetway backlog now extends beyond 12 months. We are investing in capacity to improve delivery times. Summing it up, we have strong visibility across the segment. We expect to convert backlog into revenue as production throughput improves and we reduce lead times. Please turn to Slide 7. In our Transport segment, we continue to make notable progress executing on our key programs and advancing toward our long-term objectives.
John Pfeifer
For NGDV, production is on track. The fleet has now surpassed 20 million miles and is operating in 48 states. Importantly, feedback from the USPS and their drivers continues to be very positive, reinforcing the productivity and reliability benefits of the platform as we ramp deliveries. As we look ahead, NGDV production will continue to build through the year, with a greater contribution expected in the second half. On the defense side, we are also progressing on our FMTV program.
John Pfeifer
We are launching the production of low-velocity air drop units, with production expected to grow in the second half of the year. These units represent initial deliveries under the FMTV contract extension signed in June of 2025. Closing out my segment comments, we are executing our plans for transport and expect performance to improve in the second half of the year. With that, I'll hand it over to Matt to walk through our detailed financial results.
Matt Field
Thanks, John. Please turn to Slide eight. Consolidated sales for the first quarter of $2.3 billion were flat compared to the same quarter last year, as pricing, favorable currency, and the impact of changes in cumulative catch-up adjustments in the transport segment offset lower sales volume. Adjusted operating income was $96 million, down from $192 million from the prior year, primarily due to unfavorable mix, which includes across segments, products, and for Access, channel mix with higher NRC sales compared with last year, higher manufacturing overhead costs, which in part reflects our investments for future production and lower sales volume. In the quarter, we recorded a benefit for IEPA refunds of about $13 million. Our estimate for the full year impact of Cape One is about $23 million.
Matt Field
This reflects our direct payments and excludes payments made by suppliers, which would be subject to future discussions. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.85 in the first quarter. Free cash flow for the quarter was negative $189 million, an improvement compared to negative $435 million last year. The improved result is despite lower earnings and reflected more disciplined working capital management as we built for the summer season as well as higher customer advances. Our expectation for cash conversion remains strong for the year. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 300,000 shares of our stock for $47 million. In March, we also refinanced our revolving credit facility. The 5-year agreement has similar terms to the previous facility with a capacity of $1.6 billion at a slightly lower interest rate.
Matt Field
Turning to our segment results on Slide 9, Access first quarter sales of $943 million were roughly flat with the prior year. Access sales were better than we expected, particularly given the strong sales volume Access delivered in the fourth quarter of 2025 in response to announced 2026 pricing. Compared to the first quarter of 2025, lower sales volume was partially offset by favorable currency. As John mentioned, demand has remained robust. We delivered a book-to-bill ratio of 1.6 during the quarter compared to 1.0 during the first quarter last year. Adjusted operating income margin of 4.1% was about what we expected for the quarter. The decrease in adjusted operating income relative to last year reflected mix, price cost dynamics, and the impact of lower sales volume. You will recall that Access is our segment most significantly impacted by tariffs.
Matt Field
Vocational sales of $825 million were down from last year on lower shipment volume, partially offset by improved pricing. Sales volume reflected lower sales of refuse vehicles as expected and fewer deliveries of municipal fire trucks despite modest growth in our production compared with the same period of last year. As John mentioned earlier, weather and travel challenges impacted customer pickups as they were not able to take deliveries of fire trucks late in the quarter. Lower sales volume, higher manufacturing overhead costs, partly reflecting our investments in Pierce facilities and adverse sales mix were partially offset by favorable price cost dynamics, resulting in an adjusted operating income of $94 million and a margin of 11.4% for the quarter. As John mentioned, we are focused on continued improvement in throughput for fire trucks and jet bridges in order to increase the pace of deliveries.
Matt Field
Transport segment sales increased $50 million to $513 million in the quarter due to higher sales volume and the impact of cumulative catch-up adjustments. Delivery vehicle revenue grew by $166 million to $217 million and represented 42% of transport segment sales during the quarter. Delivery revenue grew more than 30% sequentially compared to the fourth quarter of 2025. As expected, defense revenue was lower compared with last year due to lower tactical wheeled vehicle and aftermarket sales volumes. As a reminder, in the first quarter of 2025, we were still building JLTV units, with the last units built in May 2025.
Matt Field
Transport segment operating income was $4 million, up $3.6 million compared with last year, reflecting lower adverse cumulative catch-up adjustments and higher sales volume, partially offset by higher manufacturing overhead costs and adverse mix. We expect transport operating margin to grow in the back half of the year as we transition out of past fixed price contracts, continue to ramp up NGDV production, and expect to receive additional NGDV orders. Turning to our expectations for 2026 on slide 10, we continue to expect our full-year adjusted EPS to be in the range of $11.50. We are facing conditions that are more challenging and dynamic than we anticipated three months ago, and we expect roughly 30% of our earnings in the first half of the year.
Matt Field
The back half will be stronger, reflecting improved price cost and Access, higher fire truck production reflecting our investments, building on the FMTV contract, and for the NGDV, both higher production and our expectation for an additional order. We still expect free cash flow of $550 million-$650 million unchanged from our prior guidance. At this time, we are not updating or reaffirming our expectations by segment as we continue to manage our business in this evolving economic landscape. In Access, we are seeing promising order activity, as you can see in the strong book-to-bill ratio of 1.6, which may result in a modestly greater contribution from the segment.
Matt Field
In vocational, while our growth and margins are still expected to be robust, particularly for municipal fire apparatus, our first quarter delivery shortfalls and facility construction timing are likely to modestly reduce the contribution from that segment this year. Transport remains on plan. Our outlook for tariff impact has remained largely unchanged as IEPA tariff recoveries are broadly expected to offset the additional costs of the Section 232 expansion. As John mentioned at the outset, all the ingredients to deliver on our 2028 targets are in place or underway. With new and refreshed products, advanced technologies, and increased production to improve lead times on extended backlogs, the plan to achieve 2028 targets is clear. With that, I'll turn it back over to John for some closing comments.
John Pfeifer
Thanks, Matt. Summing it up, we expect continued improvement throughout the year as we execute on our plan. We are operating in a dynamic environment, including changes in tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty, but we are actively managing those factors through pricing, cost actions, and supply chain actions. We are maintaining our full year adjusted earnings expectations in the range of $11.50 per share, and we remain confident in our progress towards delivering on our 2028 targets. Our confidence is grounded in three areas: strong backlog and demand, continued production improvements at vocational, and continued progress with our NGDV ramp and transport. I'll turn it back to you, Pat, for the Q&A.
Patrick Davidson
Thanks, John. I'd like to remind everybody, 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.
Operator
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad at this time. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. Again, that's star one to register a question. Today's first question is coming from David Raso of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
David Raso
Hi. Thank you. Hopefully, you don't hear the static when I'm speaking that I'm hearing back. Please let me know.
John Pfeifer
No, you sound good, David. You sound fine.
David Raso
That's good to hear. Just curious, the 2Q implied at about $2.60. You mentioned you don't want to give business segment guide updates, can you at least give us a sense of where were you thinking EPS could be for 2Q? I'm just curious how much of the first half got pushed into the second half. Given some of the commentary around why vocational was a bit light, just curious why the catch-up wouldn't be a little bit quicker. Maybe the first part, what came out of 2Q, if it was sort of weather related, why can't we catch up for that a little bit faster? Thank you.
Matt Field
Hey, David. It's Matt. You know, the elements in Q2 largely haven't changed year-over-year. We were always expecting Access to be a little weaker. In terms of Vocational, we said two things. One, obviously, we did have the shipments that would slip into Q2, we're also seeing some delays in our facilities. As we implement our production changes, the timing of some of that capacity coming on stream is pushing later into the year. That affects a little bit of the seasonality in Q2 as well.
John Pfeifer
You know, David, this is John. I can give you a little bit more color. You mentioned that we didn't provide segment-level guide. Just some color on what we're seeing. We see right now we're seeing a little bit better expectation on access equipment as we go through the year. You saw the big $1.5 billion of orders. We're seeing favorability there. We're taking a more measured approach at the same time in our vocational business. Primarily, you know, we're gonna see really big gains in terms of fire trucks for the year, but we're taking a little bit more measured approach there versus what we originally guided to. It all still leads us to the $11.50 number. David?
David Raso
I'm sorry. I'm still here. Just the follow-up on that about Transport Defense, talking about the rest of the year for the other segments. Your postal revenue was generally where, you know, where I was expecting, and it sounds like, are we at that sort of full run rate, the quarterly run rate as the year goes on, and do we need that second tranche of orders to, you know, the cumulative accounting catch-up? Do we need that set of orders to still hit your guide for Transport Defense margin? Just curious about that catch-up in the second order that's required. Thank you.
Matt Field
Sure. The calendarization of revenue and delivery is expected to grow across the quarters. We would expect higher revenue as we progress through the year, as we continue to ramp up production. In line with our expectations and the USPS delivery schedules. We are assuming there is an order in the back half of the year as well, and so that's implicit in our guidance.
David Raso
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
John Pfeifer
Thanks, David.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Tami
Tami Zakaria
Hi. Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the vocational segment. I appreciate the winter weather and timing-related comments. Just stepping back, do you expect any pre-buy driven de-demand, or is that embedded in your guide for the back half?
Matt Field
We're not expecting significant levels of pre-buy. That might happen in the back half, but we're certainly not counting on it. Just for those on the phone listening in, this is really about 27 model year emission standards and chassis. We're not counting on that in our guidance. Certainly, if it happens, we stand ready with capacity.
John Pfeifer
Yeah. Our view, Tami, is if that happens, it'll be upside to what we're currently expecting.
Tami Zakaria
Got it. If I could ask a follow-up on that. How much volume uptick are you planning in the vocational segment year-over-year without any pre-buy normalized volume uptick for the year?
Matt Field
It's really gonna vary by segment, Tami. As we talked about before, we would see refuse vehicles down year-over-year without a pre-buy, which is what we talked about on the last call. Fire truck production, we are adding production throughput and efficiencies to modernize that line. Second half of last year, we were up roughly 10% year-over-year on our production. We would expect this year to be up 10% as well, roughly, on production. Continuing to add fire truck capacity there. As John mentioned on the call, we're adding capacity in Aerotech. That comes on stream more early 2027 than late 2026, but have plenty of capacity to support our sales projections there. We're still, we'll see growth in some segments, but on a year-over-year basis, we would expect refuse to be down, setting aside any pre-buy.
Tami Zakaria
Understood. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Mig Dobre of Baird. Please go ahead.
Mig Dobre
Yeah. Thanks. Good morning, guys. I'm wondering if you can give us a little more color on just this evolving tariff picture. If I understand correctly, you did record a $13 million benefit in Q1. Now you're dealing with updated Section 232. You know, how does this flow through the P&L through the year? You know, do you have more of a headwind now? You obviously recognize the benefits, presumably that gets unwound to some extent.
Matt Field
Hey, Mig. There are multiple moving pieces in that question, obviously. The IEPA refund, we filed that. We put that, we put the accrual in Q1. It was, what, $13.5. It's $23 for the full year. That's a portion of the IEPA, so obviously our suppliers paid IEPA as well, so they should be getting refunds. As I mentioned on the call, we'll be having discussions with them on recovering those refund payments. You've got, as you say, 232 expansion. Responding to that comes in two pieces. One, we do see IEPA fully largely offsetting the negative impacts from that. Two, the team in Access, which is primarily affected, is working diligently to mitigate that as well.
Matt Field
Some of the best teams in terms of moving around production, we talked about that pretty much half of last year. They're working through mitigation plans there as well. We think it's a negligible to zero impact on the year, between IEPA and 232.
Mig Dobre
Okay.
John Pfeifer
There's more IEPA to come, Mig, just to make that point. There's more favorability to come in the future.
Mig Dobre
I guess my follow-up is on price cost. I'm sort of curious as to how you think this dynamic evolves through the year because obviously your year is guided as very back end loaded. It does appear that, you know, cost inflation is actually ramping. Presumably you're gonna have more cost inflation to deal with in the back half than you do currently experienced in your P&L. You know, what are some of the things that you're doing to address that to get us anywhere close to kind of the way you structured the guidance?
John Pfeifer
Yeah. I'll take that, Mig. It's John. Our price cost gets better and better as we go through the year. You are correct. We're dealing with a very dynamic environment, both with tariffs and geopolitical conflict, which creates inflation. We've got incredible work going on on the cost side, but we also have some things that go on on the price side. As the year goes by, we get more and more benefit on both of those. So far in the year, we've seen very little benefit on the price side. We get more price Q2 onward, we'll get more cost reduction to minimize how much price we have to get from our customers as we go through the year. It gets better and better as we go through the year, which is part of our confidence that the second half is gonna be better than the first half.
Mig Dobre
All right. Thank you, John.
John Pfeifer
Thanks, Mig.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Angel Castillo of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Angel Castillo
Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to go back to the vocational segment a little bit. I was hoping we could unpack the margins in a little bit more detail. I guess you noticed some of the shipments slowed down and a more measured outlook in light of that. Could you talk a little bit about, I guess, any impact of manufacturing costs or mix on the business and just kind of your expectations? Related to that, I guess, you know, as we think about kind of anything you can provide in terms of bookends or qualitative thoughts, you know, just to kind of help us gauge, you know, what margins now are embedded in the guide versus the 17% you had previously guided to for the year.
Matt Field
Yeah. Thanks, Angel. Obviously volume was a driver in vocational. I mentioned mix. That's really around the mix of segments. As you think about a bridge, as you have a mix out of fire trucks because of the shipments, then you're gonna have some adverse mix effect. We have invested in additional capacity and throughput in Pierce Manufacturing specifically. As we don't deliver those fire trucks, then we have kind of stranded cost, if you will, on the manufacturing side. That's really how to think about vocational. In terms of the full year guide, while we're not providing specific guidance by segment, we still see this as a very strong business for the year.
Matt Field
The margins we would expect to be in the range of our long-term guidance in 2028, which is 16%-18%. We originally guided 17. It most likely will fall below that with some of the changes to our capacity timing, but below the 17 to be clear, but within the 16-18.
Angel Castillo
That's very helpful. Thank you. Maybe a little bit of a bigger picture or maybe just more macro, lots going on in terms of, you know, geopolitics with Iran. Just how should we think about the Iran conflict impact on your business? Obviously, always sad to see, you know, any fighting, but just was hoping you could talk about the bigger picture dynamic of impact of any energy prices might have on your business, how that kind of flows through or not. Also on the flip side, have you seen any step change in terms of orders for defense vehicles or any kind of incremental opportunities for sales there?
John Pfeifer
First of all, the conflict, what it does is it drives inflation. That's how it impacts us. When you see inflation, you see steel up 25%. You see aluminum up more than that. We all know what's going on with oil, of course. It's primarily an inflationary impact. By the way, these impacts are embedded in our guidance today. They're all considered in our guidance. We know what we're gonna do about it. We've got world-class teams that are working on positioning our footprint to make sure we keep costs as low as we possibly can. On the defense side, you know, our defense business is going well.
John Pfeifer
We're shipping more as we get to the back half of the year on new contracts, which is a big change in price, which is a part of the reason we're more confident in the second half because of that. We work really closely with the Department of Defense. We're noted as a high quality, very reliable delivery type of a business with our defense operations. There's not anything that's happened that's gonna impact 2026 at this point, but we're highly engaged with the Department of Defense to support their efforts.
Angel Castillo
Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Jerry Revich of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Jerry Revich
yes. Hi, good morning, everyone.
John Pfeifer
Morning, Jerry.
Jerry Revich
John, Hi, John, I'm wondering if I could ask about what you're seeing in access on your telematics data in North America and in Europe. It sounds like utilization is tightening based on what we're hearing from the rental channel. Is that consistent with what you see in the data in North America? Separately, would love to hear what you're seeing on the data front in Europe.
Matt Field
Thanks for the question. As part of our, you know, when I said I'll give you a little color on, you know, the segment-level details, part of the reason that we feel better and better about the access business as we go through the year, we do triangulate the data that we get off of our machines together with what our customers tell us is happening with utilization, which ultimately leads to where they need equipment and when they need equipment. It triangulates really well. You've heard some of our publicly traded customers talk about it.
John Pfeifer
Utilization's getting better. It wasn't like it was coming from a bad place, but it's certainly getting a little bit better. That's a positive sign for the access industry. In the used market in access equipment, it's also a positive sign. The used market's healthy. There's orders for new equipment that's coming in. By and large, that gives us a little bit more favorable outlook for access, Jerry.
Jerry Revich
Super. Thank you. Can I ask, on the USPS side, obviously, they're waiting on funding from Congress. Can you just talk about if production plan would be impacted at all if, you know, the order comes 3 months later, 6 months later? Can you just update on the current production lead time?
John Pfeifer
You know, currently it's, I don't think it's gonna affect 2026 because we've got orders in on the books to produce 2026. We expect the United States Postal Service will, and they expect, will continue to place orders on an annual basis as time goes by because we have to keep our supply chain with enough visibility to keep the supply chain primed. United States Postal Service understands that. We understand that. You know, they want the vehicles are doing extremely well.
John Pfeifer
You know, they want a consistent supply of vehicles per their, per their required timelines. We're meeting their timelines today, everything's going smoothly. In normal course, we expect another order this year. I don't know that that's dependent upon any congressional funding. It's really dependent upon the budget for the United States Postal Service. This program is moving smoothly. With ASC 606 accounting, when you get an order, it actually impacts your margins as you know. That's why the order is important.
Jerry Revich
Sure. Thank you.
John Pfeifer
Thanks, Jerry.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Kyle Menges of Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Kyle Menges
Great. Thanks for taking my question, guys. For the access segment, certainly orders were a bright spot in the quarter. I'm just curious maybe where you're really seeing that incremental demand, you know, by region and perhaps bifurcating between the NRCs and the independents.
John Pfeifer
Yeah. Thanks for the question. You know, it's largely still driven by the bigger projects. We call them frequently mega projects. These are projects that are hundreds of millions of dollars in size as discrete projects, are quantified. Think data centers and power gen and stuff like that. That's still kind of the bulk of it. NRCs tend to get more of that, we're weighted a bit more to the NRCs, that's okay with us. We've got great customers and that we serve there to make this happen. We're also starting to see a little bit of brightness in some private non-res end markets. Not all, some. We expect that that'll continue to gradually improve going forward.
Kyle Menges
Helpful. Then just to follow up on NGDV production. I think if my math is about correct, you might have been at around ±12,000 units of annualized production in the quarter. I wanna say the guide assumes that you get to the higher end of that 16,000-20,000 production run rate in the fourth quarter. Maybe just talk about how the ramp's going so far and your confidence level in getting to that higher end of the production target by fourth Q.
Matt Field
Just to clarify, our guide assumes the low end of the range. Annual production going forward is 16,000 to 20,000 units. Part of that's dependent upon the Postal Service's schedule to receive vehicles. We'll be at the low end of the 16 to 20,000 units this year. Production is going well. We're in line with Postal Service requirements. That's even with a couple of hiccups with snow and things in South Carolina. That doesn't happen very often. We're in line with their expected deliveries on contract, we feel good about it.
Kyle Menges
And sorry, just-
Matt Field
Kyle
Kyle Menges
just to clarify quickly, you said you'll be at the low end of that target for the full year or also in the fourth quarter?
John Pfeifer
For the full year.
Matt Field
Full year. We'll be a low end of 16,000-20,000 units for the full year.
John Pfeifer
Yeah.
Matt Field
Back half is bigger than the first half.
Kyle Menges
Got it. Thank you, guys.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Stephen Volkmann of Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Stephen Volkmann
Hi. Good morning, guys. Can I ask about Oshkosh AeroTech? That was kind of flat year-over-year. Sounds like you have some orders to ramp that, I guess. Just give me a sense of, you know, what you're seeing in that business. How do the margins kind of relate to the rest of the segment? What are you doing in terms of increases for capacity?
John Pfeifer
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Steve. AeroTech's a great business for us. I wouldn't read too much into the shipments were kind of flattish in Q1. Q1, it's just one quarter. You saw our backlog continue to build in AeroTech. This business is gonna continue to grow. We've got great customers who want to continue to invest. They are continuing to invest. The backlog is strong. The margins, all I can tell you is they're double-digit margins in this business, of course, we'll continue to grow our margins as we go forward. You know, depends on the specific product because we do jet bridges, we do ground service equipment like cargo loading equipment so forth. Depends on the specific product.
John Pfeifer
We're putting a little bit more bricks and mortar into the jet bridges because it's a really strong business for us. The ground service equipment is also a strong business. We're doing more, a little bit more 80/20 in that business to drive capacity improvement and throughput on the existing production lines.
Stephen Volkmann
Super. Just quickly, Matt, the tax rate was a little lower in the first quarter. What's the full year tax rate now?
Matt Field
Unchanged from our prior guidance on the full
Stephen Volkmann
Super. Thank you.
Matt Field
Full year tax rate.
John Pfeifer
Thanks, Steve.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Tim Thein of Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Tim Thein
Thank you. Good morning. The question is on access and Matt, to the extent that, you know, perhaps there could be some upside to the 10% margin that you outlined initially. I know that's not what you're, you know, going to imprint, but to the extent there is more upside pressure on that part of the business. I'm just curious how the balance of the year is shaping up in terms of, you know, the mix within the backlog. Specifically thinking about, you know, kind of the expectations as we go through the year with respect to price cost and kind of how that interplays within the, you know, customer and product mix.
Matt Field
Thanks, Tim. Obviously, we're pleased with the quality of the backlog and this, the book-to-bill of 1.6 was a very strong book-to-bill, which gives us greater confidence for the year shaping up to be a stronger access than what we had originally seen early on. Obviously, price cost, we've talked about that being neutral for the year. That's still the plan, which means the back half will be stronger as you get cost reductions and pricing, as John described. In terms of the margin, you know, we wanna see the year unfold a little bit more before we give specific margins, but certainly holding double-digit margins in this environment and for the year is important.
Tim Thein
Yeah. Okay. Within one piece of vocational we didn't yet hit on. Just on the garbage truck side, the volumes for the year, I know the first quarter we've been anticipating this year to be a softer year, just any revisions to how you see that playing out in, you know, how we think about the kind of the cadence of year-over-year revenue change as we go through the year for that piece of vocational?
Matt Field
Not really. I mean, starting in the third quarter, we started to see orders drop off. We've talked about that on prior calls. Well, we see the full year being down as we talked about earlier. First quarter, we were down about 25%. I think 25%-30% for the year is reasonable.
John Pfeifer
Yeah. I'll just add some color to that. You know, it's similar to what we've been saying, what we said a quarter ago on the call. We expect it to be down in 2025. That hasn't changed. It's about the same. You know, it's just cautious CapEx outlays by customers is primarily the reason. I'll make a comment that we are investing in technology that customers really care about. We launched the contamination detection technology in Q1. Very positive initial feedback on that technology. The fleets remain aged. Long term, we feel really good about this market. Healthy market for us going into 2028. 2026 is just not a year that it's growing much.
Matt Field
I got it. Thank you. Thanks, Tim.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Mike Shlisky of D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.
Mike Shlisky
Good morning, and thank you. If we can circle back to the fire commentary. I guess, just looking at overall inventories for Oshkosh, they actually were down a little bit, at least days of inventory over the prior year. You said that perhaps fire had some additional finished goods inventory. Could you maybe help at least quantify in $ how much fire inventory you had at the end of the year and what other areas of Oshkosh had inventory go down? Then also, it's already been May now. Have people come in to pick up their fire truck now that the weather, assume, has cleared up a bit here?
Matt Field
Sure, Mike. Sorry, I'm not gonna break out inventory by segment. That would be a bridge too far, I'll give you some qualitative color.
Mike Shlisky
Okay.
Matt Field
There are a few things. One, last year we had substantial inventories. We were ramping NGDV. As that production stabilized, we've been burning down inventory there. In Access, we've done a really good job, focused on inventory, burning down both finished vehicle inventory but also some of our in-process. That team's been doing a good job on inventory. They've also been doing a good job on receivables. The overall really strong working capital performance for all the segments. In terms of May, yes, people have been taking advantage of the beautiful weather here in Wisconsin to pick up fire trucks.
John Pfeifer
Yeah, we've had a lot more fire truck deliveries in the first part of Q2 as a result of that pent-up hold on shipments due to the factors we mentioned. There's been a lot of fire truck deliveries so far this quarter.
Mike Shlisky
Great. My follow-up here is also on fire. Did the weather issues during the quarter cause any issues with people being able to order or configure a truck or test drive a truck? Were the rains delayed orders? Again, did people come in here in April, May, now that the weather's better to actually order some fire trucks?
John Pfeifer
Yeah, no, that's not a factor. Order rates are still pretty consistent for us in the fire truck market, even with a big backlog. That has not been an issue. You know, the issue was widespread weather across the country. You know, you saw it in the Northeast. You saw it in New York City. You know, there's a lot of places people couldn't get in and out of, and those types of disruptions matter when you have a very formalized delivery process for a fire truck where people have to come in, do their normal inspections before the product can be, quote-unquote, "shipped.
Mike Shlisky
Thank you.
John Pfeifer
Thanks, Mike.
Matt Field
Thanks, Mike.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Chad Dillard of Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Chad Dillard
Hey, good morning, guys. A question for you on your vocational business and the sequential ramp. It sounds like you're getting more deliveries of fire trucks in May, so I'm assuming maybe seasonality is a little bit better than expected. Just trying to think through the ex-rate in the fourth quarter, given, you know, where your production ramp is. Secondly, can you comment on your 1Q fire truck backlog trends? Was the book-to-bill greater than 1?
John Pfeifer
Going by memory, I think our book-to-bill was right around 1 in fire truck.
Chad Dillard
Yes.
John Pfeifer
Think about it this way. Q2 will be, you know, sequentially much bigger than Q1. Q3 will be sequentially bigger than Q2. Q4 will sequentially be bigger than Q3. In total, we will have a very significant growth rate in fire trucks from 2025 to 2026, and we expect to continue the same in 2027. When you look at the backlog and the health of the business, we are making real changes to our ability to produce fire trucks and more and throughput in our manufacturing plants, which are going to yield very positive results over the next couple of years.
Chad Dillard
Got it. That's helpful. Just going back to that $23 million IEPA benefit. Any thoughts on like what the claim process will be for suppliers? I guess, does that $23 million go out of the future date? The remaining $10 million for the rest of the year, like how does that layer in?
Matt Field
Yeah. Let me help you understand. 23 is the full refund claimed. Obviously, some of that was for material that was imported within this year, so it will have limited impact on the year because, you know, it just changes what's in inventory. Of the $23, $17 really is associated with prior years, so that would be the good news of that thirteen and a half we accrued in Q1. The remainder of the $4, in essence, will be in the second quarter. The suppliers follow the same process we do. The CAPE system opened. It worked effectively. It was, you know, very efficient. We started to get cash from it already this week. I would expect our suppliers to do the same. It obviously is a discussion with our suppliers. That'll happen as that happens naturally.
Chad Dillard
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Steven Fisher of UBS. Please go ahead.
Steven Fisher
Thanks. Good morning. Just a couple of follow-ups on the tariffs there. What have you assumed, Matt, for the IEPA replacement after the Section 122 tariffs expire in July? Do you think that might be an element of your perhaps priced cost in the second half of the year? Also, are there any USMCA dynamics that we should be aware of as part of these changes?
Matt Field
We're assuming the present tariff landscape continues throughout the full year. We would assume the Section 122 tariffs basically continue and no change to USMCA. Fundamentally, we're assuming the present tariff landscape extends through the full year.
Steven Fisher
Okay, great. A follow-up on the vocational side and the fire trucks. I think you may have said last quarter, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that you had about $150 million of planned spending to improve the overall throughput and production, and maybe you'd spent about half of that. Just kind of curious where you stand on that. It sounds like you are making progress and getting those sequential deliveries to improve over the course of the year and into next year. Just curious, bigger picture on sort of the investments you're making and, you know, when we think we could be through that and more comfortable with the overall throughput of the business line.
Matt Field
Thanks for a good memory. It was $150 million. We were about halfway through that end of last year. We continue to make the investments throughout this year. We expect the bulk of that investment to be completed by the end of the year. As I mentioned, we had some availability of space and getting permits and so forth that shifted a little bit more back end than what we had originally anticipated at the beginning of this year. We would expect the bulk of those investments to be completed by the end of this year, with most of that capacity on stream.
John Pfeifer
I'll just let you know, Steve, we have our best people on this, and we have done this before in other segments, and we're already seeing results from the work that we've been doing.
Steven Fisher
Terrific. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Jamie Cook of Truist Securities. Please go ahead.
Jamie Cook
Hi. Good morning. I guess 2 questions. One, John, you know, just on the M&A front, you've been a little quiet for you know what I mean, in terms of not doing deals in a while. Then, you know, I'm just wondering too, if there's parts of your portfolio, you know, that are underperforming relative to your targets, which could be an opportunity for you.
Jamie Cook
Then my 2nd question, just as it relates to the guide, and I guess it being more of a back-end loaded year, how would you characterize sort of, you know, what's in your control versus more macro? I guess from the call, it sounds like a lot more of it. It's just the capacity, you know what I mean, from vocational that's pushing things out.You know, to the degrees it's under control, my guess is people would get more comfortable with the back-end loaded guide, but just any color there. Thank you.
John Pfeifer
Yeah. Thanks, Jamie. Let me start with your first question, which is on the M&A front. You know, we always talk about our always on process. Always on means we are always looking at targets, and we're very patient, and we're very picky about what we think makes sense. If you look at the deals that we've done there, we like every single one of them. There's not one that we have any regrets about. They're all contributing to the health of our company. M&A activity can be a bit lumpy. We've done some smaller technology deals recently. Like we bought Canvas is a really important part of JLG's autonomy strategy.
John Pfeifer
You know, so you'll see us continue to do some things certainly on the technology front. When we see the right opportunity, again, we're patient, we're a bit picky. It can be lumpy. We'll make another acquisition outside of technology as well. Let me go to the second half of your question, which is the second half of this year. You know, what supports our view on the second half of the year, number 1 is the access equipment business is continuing to gain a little bit of momentum. We feel good about it. We feel good about our price cost building as we go through the year. That's a big part of it. In addition to that, we continue to talk about fire trucks.
John Pfeifer
Fire trucks is a great business for us. Fire departments need more trucks. We got a big backlog. We'll continue to increase production every quarter as we go through the year. That will materially impact the second half of the year. We've also got our NGDV ramp, gets bigger in the second half than it has been in the first half. We expect an order with ASC 606 accounting, an order boosts margins on the program. Finally, our FMTV contract starts to kick in. The new contract kicks in in the second half of the year. That's materially higher pricing on that contract. That makes a nice boost to our business as well as FMTVs will have a big jump in pricing and margins. Those are the primary factors. You know, if you look at that, a lot of that's within our control.
Jamie Cook
Thank you.
John Pfeifer
Thanks, Jamie.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is coming from Steve Barger of KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Steve Barger
Hey, thanks. Good morning. Going back to the Oshkosh AeroTech capacity expansions, after you do the bricks and mortar and the 80/20 actions, how much will capacity expand, you know, in percentage terms? How will throughput grow, and what revenue will the business be capacitized to?
Matt Field
I think that'll be subject to a future conversation, Steve. It's a good question. We'll have more to say on that in the future. That capacity, just a little bit of clarification. Bricks and mortar is a strong term. We're not building new buildings, we're expanding some work inside. We're upgrading some facilities, improving throughput, some production efficiency, specifically around jet bridges. That takes a little time. We'll be talking more about that more around 2027 than 2026.
Steve Barger
Okay. John, just following up on the last question about second half waiting and what's in your control, and just extending that thought process to 2028, can you just reiterate why you see that path as achievable? Are you leaning at this point toward the low scenario for 28, or do you think mid is still achievable?
John Pfeifer
Oh, no. We still would say mid is right where we expect to be. I mean, when you look at the demand in our end markets, and you look at our backlogs that we've already got, that's the underpinning of it. Then you look at the work that we're doing to right-size our capacity to be able to deliver, that's the confidence that we have in 2028.
John Pfeifer
The technology that we build into our products, which is right in line with what our customers really want us to do, whether it's autonomous operation or it's embedding AI, or in some cases still, when it makes sense, electrification, that's all part of why we are, why we're so bullish on 28. We're defining what the future of these end markets should look like, whether it's an airport, a construction site, a neighborhood operation. We're really defining what the future should be, which is better than what it has been in the past, and that drives our confidence in delivering 2028.
Steve Barger
That's good detail. I appreciate it.
Operator
Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Davidson for closing comments.
Patrick Davidson
Thank you, Donna. Thanks for joining us on the call today. We will be meeting with investors at several conferences during May and June, and have a good rest of the day.
Transcript from May 8, 2026
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