Penske Helps Darigold Use Data to Drive Fleet Performance

Darigold is a century-old dairy manufacturing company owned by the Northwest Dairy Association, a cooperative of family-owned farms across the Pacific Northwest. With a large regional footprint and time-sensitive delivery requirements, the company depends on a high-performing fleet to keep operations running smoothly.

Darigold manages a fleet of 200 drivers who support both direct-to-store deliveries and warehouse transfers throughout the Pacific Northwest. In January 2025, Darigold shifted its operations to a full-service lease model with Penske, gaining access to new equipment and a deeper layer of operational visibility through Penske’s suite of digital experience tools. Darigold also retains a Penske on-site maintenance facility for in-house, turn-key operations.

Brian Harper, Darigold’s Fleet Operations Leader, oversees fleet performance across five locations. His team is deeply engaged in leveraging Penske’s technologies within Fleet Insight™ and particularly Comparative Insights powered by Catalyst AI™.

“All of our management teams use Fleet Insight almost daily to check on preventive maintenance, equipment status, and overall visibility,” said Harper. “It gives fleet managers the data they need at their fingertips to run the operation and know exactly where they stand.”

Fleet Insight houses Penske’s suite of digital tools for real-time maintenance tracking, asset visibility and reporting. It provides access to an advanced group of technologies designed to streamline fleet operations. Within Fleet Insight, Harper and his team were among the first to use Comparative Insights, a feature powered by Catalyst AI, Penske’s proprietary artificial intelligence platform.

“We’ve always been focused on performance and uptime, but the tools available now have completely changed how we manage the fleet,” said Harper. “All five of our sites rely on Fleet Insight daily – it’s foundational.”

Comparative Insights provides benchmarking visibility across similar fleets in the market. “It lets us see how we’re performing against the market in real-time,” Harper explained. “It creates a new layer of benchmarking – more than just our own internal data or spreadsheets – it’s dynamic and it’s helping us find the right areas to improve.”

While Harper and his team previously relied on a mix of disconnected technologies and manual processes to make sense of operational data, Catalyst AI surfaced trends around utilization and fuel efficiency in a single view. The tool’s real-time insights and fleet-level comparisons opened the door for more confident decision-making.

“The data surfaced through Catalyst AI has already supported internal reporting and opened up opportunities to reduce costs and reevaluate how we measure success,” said Harper. “We’re starting to use that intelligence to shape how we manage fuel and utilization across locations.”

The latest release of Catalyst AI introduced new tools for unit-level benchmarking, helping Harper’s team shift from broad fleet-level trends to more refined comparisons, fine-tuned to their delivery model and operational density. Darigold is now preparing to take advantage of these enhancements and drive even deeper improvements.

“We’ve been involved early on, working with Penske’s team to help shape how comparisons are structured,” said Harper. “The new features make it easier to take action. It’s going to point operations like ours in the right direction, faster.”

Harper emphasized the importance of accuracy and context when evaluating performance. “We’ve worked closely with the Penske team in early development phases to help test and ensure an apples-to-apples comparison,” he said. “Our operation is different from a long-haul fleet – we’re also in dense delivery zone along the I-5 corridor – so we collaborated to ensure the right data inputs were reflected in the platform. We appreciated being part of the process. That kind of collaboration builds trust.”

Harper’s trust in the tools – and the partnership – runs deep. He credits the strength of Penske’s local support and the responsiveness of its product teams with making the transition successful.

“Our Penske account team has been phenomenal,” Harper said. “They’ve helped us every step of the way, from the lease transition to maintenance to the rollout of new technology. And the Catalyst AI team really took the time to learn our business and make sure the tool works for us, and fleets across the nation.”

Looking ahead, Harper sees Catalyst AI becoming even more foundational to their operations. “Being out front with technology like this – it’s where I want us to be and we’re just scratching the surface. The newly released version is going to help operations like mine run smarter and more efficiently,” he said. “Penske’s at the tip of the spear with this kind of information,” he said. “And I’m glad to be in front of it with them, rather than behind it.”