REV Group, Inc. (REVG) Q3 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

REV Group, Inc. (REVG -0.59%)
Q3 2021 Earnings Call
Sep 08, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to REV Group, Inc. third-quarter 2021 earnings conference call. [Operator instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to Drew Konop, vice president of investor relations and corporate development. Thank you. You may begin.

Drew Konop -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development

All right. Thank you, Sherry. Good morning, and thanks for joining us. Earlier today, we issued our third-quarter fiscal 2021 results.

A copy of the release is available on our website at investors.revgroup.com. Today's call is being webcast and a slide presentation, which includes a reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures is also available on our website. Please refer now to Slide 2 of that presentation. Our remarks and answers will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

These risks include, among others, matters that we've described in our Form 8-K filed with the SEC earlier today and other filings we make with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly earnings call, if at all. All references on this call to a quarter or a year or our fiscal quarter or fiscal year, unless otherwise stated. Joining me on the call today are our president and CEO, Rod Rushing; as well as our CFO, Mark Skonieczny.

Please turn now to Slide 3, and I'll turn the call over to Rod.

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Drew, and good morning to everyone joining us on today's call. I'd like to begin with a brief comment regarding our situation resulting from the Hurricane Ida. As you may know, our Ferrara Fire business is in Holden, Louisiana, which effectively was right on the path of Hurricane Ida. We are thankful that we have not had any report of injury to our employees at this time. Many of our suppliers and our own efforts have provided essentials during this difficult time as they endeavor to recover from the storm's aftermath.

Vice president of Ferrara, Bert McCutcheon, has cooked meals for many employees, and I'd simply like to thank all involved that have helped our team members. Our facility has been impacted, and Mark will speak to that momentarily. Also, we would like to thank the first responders that put themselves on the line in support of the efforts that will help recovery from the storm. This morning, I will provide an overview of the quarter's consolidated performance and then move to commercial, financial and operating highlights achieved within the quarter before turning it over to Mark for detailed financial segments.

We are pleased to report another strong quarter that nearly doubled our adjusted EBITDA performance versus last year despite top-line implications tied to increasing supply chain challenges and labor challenges. We continue to experience headwinds with staffing workers and absenteeism, as well as shortages in raw materials and components such as semiconductors, furniture, wiring harnesses, pumps, axles and chassis. Throughout this fiscal year, our procurement team has engaged with our supplier partners and has generally been able to source to allow continued production. This has often led to inefficiencies, time and rework that we have been able to achieve our throughput targets.

However, as we move through the quarter, these labor/material shortages became more difficult to offset, and we were unable to meet our production targets. As a result, approximately $65 million of revenue slipped out of the quarter as our deliveries were delayed. Third-quarter net sales of $593 million increased 1.9% over last year's quarter. We estimate that roughly $50 million of vehicle starts were missed within the quarter due to the previously discussed challenges, which will have a full impact, through impact in the fourth quarter of our consolidated top line.

This resulted in a full-year revenue guidance adjustment that we announced today. I'd like to be clear though that these are delayed deliveries due to timing of materials, components and chassis, but they are not lost sales. Third-quarter sales increase was driven by commercial and recreation segments. Commercial segment sales reflect improved end market conditions and share gains within our specialty group, as well as increased sales in our municipal transit bus versus prior year.

In the recreation segment, demand for all categories continue to be strong, with retail sales matching or exceeding wholesale shipments. Delivery inventories are still 60% to 70% below historic norms across all of our brands, and inbound orders remain robust. We have not yet experienced a notable restock of any of our RV categories, and most wholesale shipments are still selling through to retail buyers. In fire and emergency, revenue declined year over year, as well as sequentially.

This segment was the most impacted by the current supply chain and labor constraints. Despite headwinds on the top line, our businesses have continued to improve operationally and delivered solid bottom-line results. Third-quarter adjusted EBITDA was $41.6 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 7%, increasing 330 basis points over last year. Sequentially, margins declined just 10 basis points on $50 million less revenue, demonstrating our improved operational performance.

Over the past 15 months, our businesses have adapted under difficult conditions to deliver results. We continue to flex labor, adjust line rates and production mix to accommodate available build and maximize profitability. Commercially, the teams have done an excellent job in mitigating today's inflationary environment. We have been able to achieve positive price costs and realize the price that is within our backlog.

Turning to Slide 4. We have several accomplishments within the third quarter that I'd like to highlight. First, our new order performance continues to gain momentum, and we closed the third quarter with our seventh consecutive record backlog. Each of our segments had strong order intake within the quarter, and we achieved a consolidated book-to-bill ratio of 1.3 times our fiscal 2020 third-quarter results.

Our consolidated book-to-bill was 1.4 times, resulting in a total backlog of $2.7 billion. This positions us well for growth as we enter the fourth quarter and work our business planning for FY 2022. In Q1 of this fiscal year, we announced that we will be investing in developing our operational excellence capabilities. At our investor day in April, we provided an update on the work -- the early work that the team had accomplished.

At that time, we reported that we had certified 300 bronze, 150 and 35 black belt trainees, and we had a pipeline of 385 projects that were all aimed at delivering ongoing cost savings. In the five months since that, we now have 515 bronze, 155 green, and 84 black belt certifications, and our operations savings pipeline has nearly doubled to an active 738 total active projects. The team has fully integrated suite of software tools, including Power BI and LeanDNA that allow us to daily update and automate tracking, report it to our opex results. One result of these operational excellence efforts is the improved profitability with our year-over-year increase in EBITDA and net income over the past four quarters.

This improvement has increased the baseline for a year-to-date cash generation. The third quarter marked another quarter of strong cash conversion and free cash flow. We remain focused on net working capital efficiency with improved accounts receivable collection within the quarter. Our businesses are also working with their customers to expand our deposit program, which increased our advances by over $5 million compared to the second quarter.

Improved cash from operations combined with a typically low level of capital requirements provided cash to reduce our net debt by $57.5 million. Over the past year, both the numerator and denominator of the net debt-to-EBITDA equation have improved significantly. We exited the quarter with 1.7 times leverage, well below our stated target of two to 2.5 times. This level of debt and earnings performance positions us with the capacity to pursue our strategic growth initiatives and return capital to our shareholders.

Today, we announced that the board of directors has authorized a new $150 million share repurchase program. We are pleased that our financial performance has put us, put the company in a position to follow last quarter's reinstatement of our annual dividend with a buyback authorization this quarter, reflecting ongoing commitment to our capital allocation strategy of investing in our business, maintaining strong liquidity and appropriate leverage while returning cash to our shareholders. We strive for disciplined use of capital that maximizes the company's value and shareholder value. The authorization allows maximum flexibility to achieve our goals.

Earlier, I mentioned the strength of our current record $2.7 billion backlog. The backlog growth to date is a result from solid year-over-year bookings growth from our improved commercial performance. Simplification of our brand and dealer network are delivering share gains, as well as the delayed throughput resulting from the external headwinds. We believe that there will be additional growth opportunities stemming from the combination of the recently passed Senate bipartisan infrastructure bill and the recently passed House $3.5 trillion budget resolution.

These two bills contain an additional $5 billion for electric vehicles and buses, $30 billion for modernizing public transportation and $80 billion to upgrade the power grid and install EV charging infrastructure. The final version of these two bills is yet still yet to be determined, but when passed, we expect they will provide additional funding to municipalities to improve their municipal transportation and first responder assets. Our commercial teams have been working to identify and streamline the process of stimulus dollars reaching our customers. We view both the infrastructure bill and the budget resolution is providing incremental opportunity to the level of demand we are experiencing today.

We have had a focused effort over the past year to advance the electrification of our platforms with recent product announcements demonstrating our progress. Last week, we had milestone announcements from both our fire group and our school bus business. First, we announced the fire group will introduce its first fully electric North American style fire apparatus across all the REV brands. Developed with partner, Emergency One Group, the maker of the world's first EV fire truck, this new electric fire truck will deliver the longest electric pumping duration in the industry.

It enables departments to drive and pump on electric power only, a key differentiator in the industry. Its range extender diesel engine is used for backup when pumping beyond three or four hours on the hydrant or for extended operation in a blackout or natural disaster. It is built for strength, durability and specifically for the fire service location. We announced that we are taking preorders through our dealers, and it will be available for delivery in 2022.

Adding to our ambulance partnership, we expanded our relationship with Lightning eMotors to include our Type A school bus business, Collins Bus. Under this multiyear agreement, we expect to deliver more than 100 all-electric buses across the U.S. and Canada over the next several years. The buses will support both AC -- Level 2 AC charging and Level 3 DC fast charging with integrated vehicle-to-grid capabilities.

Other features will include a modern digital-dash display, hill hold functionality for safety, advanced telemetrics and analytics and a mobile app for drivers and fleet managers. The first orders for this all-electric Type A bus utilizing Lightning's EV technology are already in production with delivery to dealers and school districts expected this fall. Finally, our capacity business displayed its hydrogen fuel hybrid electric terminal truck at this year's advanced clean transportation conference in Long Beach, California. Two of these trucks are currently in operation at the Port of Long Beach and have been made available for ride and test drive.

The trucks maximize uptime by providing hydrogen power backup when the electric battery requires recharging. This hybrid technology is designed for operation in intermodal port and warehousing or distribution applications. We are pleased to say that this product has received excellent feedback and recognition at the clean transportation conference. It's an exciting time to be at REV when electrification and specialty vehicle fleets is just beginning in most of our markets while accelerating in others.

There is significant opportunities to be market leaders in this space and outpace our competition. We will continue to work our strategy of co-development and partnerships with technology leaders who will put us in a position to win. Today, we shared a few examples, but we expect additional news surrounding EV platforms to be forthcoming. I will now turn it over to Mark for details of our third-quarter financial performance.

Mark?

Mark Skonieczny -- Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Rod, and good morning, everyone. Before I begin, I'd like to recognize our team for the solid performance during the quarter with such uncertainty. Entering our fiscal third quarter, industry research forecast that we are approaching a trough of semiconductor shortages. Yet, within the third quarter and entering our fiscal fourth quarter, shortages have increased and forecast of global vehicle production continued to decline.

In addition, our component suppliers continue to have challenges meeting demand as they deal with their own external headwinds. Exasperating the situation, cases of the Delta variance and quarantine workforces began to rise rapidly within our fiscal third quarter. These are external forces that we cannot control, but our teams were able to manage them effectively in the third quarter. As Rob mentioned, our top-line revenue impact from these headwinds was roughly $65 million in the quarter, yet we maintained a decremental margin of 6% in operations.

We expect the challenges we experienced exiting the third quarter to remain throughout our fiscal fourth quarter. We will continue to adjust operations in response to material and labor availability to optimize our decremental performance. Now please turn to Page 5 of the slide deck as I move to a review of our segment level performance. Fire and emergency third-quarter segment sales were $270 million, a decrease of 12% compared to the prior year.

The decrease in net sales was primarily the result of fewer shipments of fire apparatus and ambulance units versus the prior year, partially offset by price realization of trucks that were in backlog. As you have likely heard through industry data, media and earning reports, key suppliers have needed to place their customers on allocation or chosen not to restart production at certain facilities as they manage their own supply disruptions. This has resulted in limited availability of chassis, axles and other components critical for completions and starts. Exiting quarter, we had over 100 vehicles that did not have all of the parts required to be completed.

As a result, these units remain in WIP rather than being delivered and revenued. In addition to supply chain disruptions, labor availability was challenging in the quarter, particularly in our two largest F&E facilities in Florida due to the escalation of COVID variants. In order to maintain some measure of consistent flow through the plants, we have been proactive in limiting or altering our production schedules. For example, a lack of van-based chassis supply to our Ambulance division resulted in a production shift to modular units that are higher content.

Due to increased content and complexity, these units require more time on the production line with slowed velocity and contributed to lower-than-expected sales within the quarter. F&E segment adjusted EBITDA was $15.8 million in the third-quarter 2021, compared to $12.9 million in the third quarter of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 5.8% improved 170 basis points compared to last year. The increase was primarily a result of price realization within our backlog, favorable mix of the high content ambulant units mentioned earlier and lower operating costs, partially offset by supply chain disruption and labor constraint and efficiencies.

The segment once again mitigated the impact of inflation in the third quarter despite these being relatively long-cycle businesses. Total F&E backlog was $1.2 billion, an increase of 18% year over year. The increase in backlog was a result of strong orders for fire apparatus and ambulant units over the past year. Fire orders increased 78% versus last year's quarter, while orders for ambulances increased 88%, setting another record for inbound ambulance unit orders.

The quarter also marked the seventh consecutive record of Ambulance Group backlog, which has continued to grow since the onset of the pandemic in the second quarter of 2020. We expect the remainder of the fiscal year for the F&E segment will continue to be impacted by supply chain and labor market disruptions. We have worked closely with our OEM partners to communicate our demand needs and secure the chassis needed to fulfill our fourth-quarter production plan within the Ambulance Group. As Rod mentioned, Hurricane Ida has impacted our Ferrera Fire plant in Louisiana.

There is limited damage to facility. However, production is not resumed as of today, although we expect they could return as early as this week. We are working with our local supply base in Louisiana to determine what damage they have experienced and the impact of future component supply. As we ramp the facility back up, it may also be challenging for on-site vehicle inspections and deliveries.

This is due to a lack of hotel rooms being occupied with contractors visiting to assist recovery efforts. Considering these impacts, current chassis supply and line rate adjustments, we expect segment performance to be in line with the third quarter run rate. Turning to Slide 6. Commercial segment sales of $111 million was an increase of 21% compared to the prior-year period.

The increase was primarily related to increased specialty group sales and increased sales in municipal transit buses, partially offset by lower sales of school buses. Momentum in our specialty businesses continued with year-over-year sales increases of 126% and 245% for terminal trucks and street sweepers, respectively. Municipal transit bus shipments returned to a more normalized level compared to last year's reduced deliveries, which have been adjusted to accommodate the request of a large municipal transit customer due to COVID-19. Commercial segment adjusted EBITDA of $9.7 million decreased 6% versus the prior year.

The decrease in EBITDA was primarily a result of an unfavorable mix of school buses and municipal transit buses. Both bus types had less content, which resulted in less EBITDA within the quarter versus the prior-year period. The specialties group has done an excellent job winning new contract awards and leveraged increased sales volumes in the quarter. The business has been an early adopter of a number of opex initiatives and has improved manufacturing profitability by over 600 basis points compared to the prior year.

However, the group's adjusted EBITDA margin is still trailing the segment's consolidated rate of 8.7%. Therefore, the third-quarter segment mix of sales containing greater contribution from our specialty group is margin dilutive. We believe specialty's continued efforts and deployments of the REV drive business system will position them to return to double-digit margins. Commercial segment backlog at the end of the third quarter was $312 million, which reflects strong orders for terminal trucks, street sweepers and a return to normal ordering patterns for school buses.

Specialty group backlog increased 618% year over year and achieved the second consecutive record level. Our capacity terminal truck business is seeing demand from the warehouse and distribution segment and won two large national account orders, which led to market share gains. Street-sweeper demand remained strong with our rental house customers expecting these trends to continue into 2022, given the prospect of a new infrastructure bill. Within the municipal transit markets, we have had greater quoting activity from airports due to increased passenger activity.

Universities have been slowest to recover and ordering was muted, but we expect this end market to improve as students return to campus in the fall. The transit industry has been the quickest to adopt zero-emission buses. And within the quarter, we partnered with the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority to showcase our hydrogen fuel cell bus on tours of California and Canada. This borrow-a-bus program was created to raise awareness about innovative technologies and marked the first time the bus was displayed and operated in Canada, whose government has pledged to help purchase 5,000 zero-emission buses over the next five years.

Our update to consolidated revenue guidance reflects our expectation that the specialty and municipal transit business performance will be similar to third quarter. However, our Collins school bus business suspended production during the month of August due to lack of chassis supply. We have updated our fourth-quarter production planning to align with our OEM partners updated delivery schedule. With this information, the top-line impact due to the school bus production shutdown is expected to be in the range of $25 million to $30 million versus the third-quarter commercial segment revenue run rate.

As mentioned earlier, our businesses have limited the impact of lost revenue, and we expect a 15% decremental EBITDA margin. Turning to Slide 7. Recreation segment sales of $213 million were up 16% versus last year's quarter. Increased sales versus prior year were primarily a result of increased unit shipments of Class B, Class C and towable products, plus lower discounts and allowances across all our segment categories.

Partially offsetting the increase was lower sales of Class A units related to supply chain and labor shortages, which was a headwind throughout the quarter. The industry remains challenged with material shortages of furniture, awnings, generators and other small ticket items needed to deploy chip units. In some instances, our relatively small-scale has been an advantage, and we've been able to find alternative sources for product. The limited availability of gas chassis for Class A motorhomes result in a greater mix of diesel and overall lower line rates for that business.

Recreation segment adjusted EBITDA was $24.1 million, up $12 million versus the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.3% is a record for the segment. The increase in EBITDA was primarily the result of stronger price realization related to price increases and lower discounts, volume leverage and lower operating expenses, partially offset by material inflation and increased freight surcharges. Even with the line rate challenges presented by labor and chassis shortages in our Class A business, margins were nearly 600 basis points greater than the prior year.

The business is making good progress against our stated goal of raising its peak to trough margin profile to levels that meet or beat industry peers and lowering its unit breakeven point. Our Class B and Class C businesses continued to perform above industry averages, with market share gains in their respective categories and mid-teen EBITDA margins. Segment backlog of nearly $2 billion increased 250% versus the prior year and 23% sequentially. It is the fifth consecutive quarterly record and a result of continued strong order intake across all of our RV categories.

End market conditions remain strong, with retail sales exceeding wholesale shipments and dealer inventories that remain down an average of 60% to 70% compared to historical levels. Introduction of the 2023 mild year was successfully launched across our motorized brands, and we are looking forward to the wide releases at the upcoming retail show in Hershey and dealer open house in Elkhart later this month. Industry demand remains elevated, and we believe we are positioned for growth above market with continued share gains, entering to new markets and portfolio alignment to faster-growing categories. Turning to Slide 8.

Net debt as of July 31 was $240.8 million, including $9.2 million of cash on hand versus $330 million net debt at the end of fiscal 2020. At quarter end, the company maintained ample liquidity with approximately $277 million available under the ABL revolving credit facility. We believe our leverage ratio, combined with this liquidity and strong cash generation positions us well to opportunistically buy back shares and deploy capital in a value-accretive manner. We declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.05 a share payable October 15 to shareholder of record on September 30, and Rob discussed the announced share repurchase authorization of $150 million.

Trade working capital on July 31, 2021, was $405.5 million, compared to $427 million at the end of fiscal 2020. Year-to-date net cash provided by operating activities was $100.6 million, compared to $25 million in the prior-year period. Improvement in year-to-date cash from operating activities was primarily related to higher net income and trade working capital management, including a decrease in accounts receivable and inventory, partially offset by decreased payables. We have spent $13.9 million on capital expenditures through the third quarter and expect to spend $8 million to $10 million more in the fourth quarter.

This results in year-to-date free cash flow conversion of 147% and the midpoint of our updated guidance at 121%. Turning to Slide 9. Today, we are updating full-year fiscal 2021 guidance to reflect the challenges that have impacted our top line. We now expect fourth-quarter sales to be in line with the third-quarter run rate, reflecting the growing impact of supply chain and labor constraints.

On Monday, they will report that third-quarter light vehicle production will be worse than second quarter and up to 3.8 million vehicles. In addition, productivity declines related to COVID variants have increased, which was not anticipated when we provided guidance in June. As a result, we have lowered our full-year revenue guidance by $150 million at the midpoint to a range of $2.30 billion to $2.45 billion. This is approximately 4% growth year over year, compared to the prior midpoint 11%.

We have lowered the range of adjusted EBITDA guidance to $140 million to $150 million from $145 million to $160 million, a reduction of $7.5 million at the midpoint. We are narrowing net income guidance to a range of $54 million to $64 million from $52 million to $68 million previously. We also tightened the adjusted net income range to $74 million to $83 million from $73 million to $88 million, and free cash flow is now expected to be between $90 million and $100 million, an increase of $19 million at the midpoint. With that, I'll turn it back to Rod for closing comments.

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Mark. We discussed today that there remain many challenges in the operating environment that we are managing with the resurgence of COVID and the lingering labor and supply chain impacts related to this. Yet, we are also operating where end market demand for our vehicles is very strong, providing record backlog and pending fiscal stimulus that can enable and accelerate demand and the adoption of new technologies for us to capitalize on. While the pandemic has not left us, we do see that people have begun to return to schools, universities and airports and are traveling more frequently.

Demand for recreational vehicles is not relented and the market survey suggests that new interest in demographics have entered the lifestyle. While shortages have limited our line rates and top line, we have managed costs effectively and maintain positive price/cost year to date. I am pleased with the work that our team has done in advancing the REV drive business system. This has been fundamental to our ability to improve results under these difficult conditions.

We have much work to do, but we are excited to exit the quarter with a strong financial position, provides flexibility to pursue our strategic growth initiatives, as well as return cash to our shareholders. In closing, I'd like to once again thank our dedicated employees for their continued efforts in working through these challenging times and continue to provide our customers with innovative, high-quality of products that truly make a difference in people's lives. Thank you for joining today's call. And operator, we'll now take -- open questions.

Thank you.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

[Operator instructions] Our first question is from Mig Dobre with Baird. Please proceed.

Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I guess, I'm just sort of looking to clarify, make sure that I heard this right. When you're contemplating the fourth-quarter sales, are you -- did you mention that you expected fourth-quarter sales to be pretty close to what you've done in the third quarter? Because, obviously, I mean, the range that you provided in your guidance is extremely wide. That's why I'm looking to kind of clarify this.

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, yes, that's correct, Mig. Obviously, we'll have some in line on the F&E side and maybe a little off tick in recreation. But the impact that we're having because of Collins, the $25 million to $30 million, with that plant being shut down, will more or less normalize the normal $20 million to $30 million uptick we've seen historically from quarter to quarter.

Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

OK, OK, that makes sense. And then, in fire and emergency, I guess, I'm trying to get a better sense here for how you're kind of thinking about the run rate for this business as we start to contemplate fiscal '22 here. There's a lot of backlog that you have in a business. At what point in time do you think you're gonna be able to have sort of better conversion here? What you have in the backlog right now, is that all slated for fourth quarter and fiscal '22 deliveries? Or is a portion of this backlog anticipated to stretch out into fiscal '23? And then, related to this, from a profitability standpoint, how is this backlog priced? Are you in a position where you can offset these incremental headwinds? Or should we be extrapolating the fourth quarter as we think about fiscal '22?

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I guess, Mig. Obviously, we're not going to comment on '22. I'd say, though, in Q3, we demonstrated that we were able to offset. So we even had orders that were pre the inflationary period and the work that we've talked previously about that our purchasing group is billing to drive savings off the inflation.

And then, we have come out with price increases and specifically in F&E, with price increases, and then on the ambulance side where surcharges offset those costs that will become -- that have hit the market. So the sales that we see, we feel confident that we'll still have a positive price/cost equation with what we -- how we price the product, but also the savings initiatives that Rob Vislosky and the procurement team has driven. So we don't see a margin degradation related to price cost in that business going forward.

Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

And in terms of how deliveries are slated out of this backlog, is it all fiscal '22 business and some in '21? Or is there a component of stretches into '23 at this point?

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Right now, it doesn't extend out to '23. So we're still in the '22 period. Obviously, looking at how we reforecasted our Q4 in '21 and then exiting into '22, it's pretty close to a full year of backlog that we have in that business.

Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

OK, all right. Thanks for the color. Appreciate it.

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes.

Operator

From Courtney Yakavonis with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Hey, Courtney.

Courtney Yakavonis -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Starts that are being pushed to the right and...

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sorry, we had a delay there, Courtney. Could you restart the question? We got you missed.

Courtney Yakavonis -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Just on your comments that some of the starts are being pushed to the right, just your conviction that those are not gonna be canceled or move to another provider, given some of these issues. And then also, if you can appreciate that you're not giving 2022 guidance at this point. But if you can help us think about segment-level margin targets, given where you're going to fall this year, obviously, not necessarily going according to plan in the fourth quarter, would you just help us think about targets for 2022 by segment for those margins?

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Courtney, this is Rod. I'll take the flow-through question and starts question. I think that the impacts we've had related to starts is really a velocity, it's completely something that the industry is experiencing. So the starts that we missed are related to the line not moving a TAC and was not delivering the revenue, which was, obviously, something we talked about today, and it's related directly back to a process of being ready to build, because you have the materials and having the slots open up as you move things to the line.

So it's all related to the velocity and the fact that the materials -- as far as orders being canceled, we have not seen any of that or any suggestion of that. And honestly, with the fact that these aren't like REV production issues. They're moving your order somewhere else is not going to solve that. You're going to get in line somewhere else if you even want to think about that, because the material shortage are an industry phenomenon, not a -- fortunately not a REV problem.

So I think that we're in a good spot there. I even have made a specific comment that the delays, these are delays and not lost sales, and we feel strongly that that's the case. So we're working hard to get these deliveries from our suppliers so we can get back to TAC and deliver revenue though. Mark, I don't know if you wanna take the second question.

Mark Skonieczny -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, and I'd say, Courtney, on the margin profile, I'd just say we're not going to provide guidance right now, but we -- as we look out into what we have provided for 2023, I think we're still on path or ahead of the investor day 2023 target that we had provided. And some of the challenge we have here is, obviously, is what kind of throughput we'll get entering into 2022 as we exit Q4 run rate here. So we're still open to them. And obviously, we'll be providing guidance in the December time frame when we present our Q4 results.

I really want to hold off, given that fact that we have a lot of challenging headwinds ahead of us here to manage through before we give a full-year look for 2022 and what our expectations were. But nothing has come off or what we have presented previously around our 2023 targets in the path to get there.

Courtney Yakavonis -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

OK, great. Thanks.

Drew Konop -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development

Hey, Sherry, this is Drew. We're, I think, a little bit delayed when we're passing off questions. I think Joel is in the queue. If he's started, we haven't heard yet.

Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

Yes, I didn't start yet, but I can hear you guys. Is it coming through, OK?

Drew Konop -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development

Yes.

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes.

Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

OK, hi. I just wondered maybe more like, I don't know, structural question. Anything that you guys can do to solve this chassis issue? It seems like it's been something that's ongoing for a couple of years. And I know you have great relationships with your suppliers and all that kind of stuff.

And I don't know, is there any way around this as a recurring issue?

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, well, I can't -- I don't know. The issue we've had is really something that kind of created from the pandemic in the semiconductors, and it's very well reported throughout the industry in terms of lead times in automotive and the pooling that some of the OEMs are having or awaiting parts and finishes. And I can assure you, we're -- there's not a stone unturned between us and the OEMs around trying to figure out how to solve this. We have daily and weekly calls to understand production rates and delays and postponements.

And you guys all see the announcements of delays in openings and shutdowns that they're going OEM by OEM right now. So we're caught in that cycle like everybody else that's buying from this, including -- if you go to any -- it's a different build, obviously, if you go to any dealer lot on the consumer side, you'll see a shortage of inventory as well. So it's a massive impact that we're working day-to-day with these OEMs try to address their build to make sure that they're allocating to these critical areas of infrastructure that support our communities. So we're having a -- we couldn't have more dialogue than we're having with them, but the quality of information relating to this being resolved is not something we're getting a real quick turnaround on.

So it's going to -- I'd say, I think we've got some challenges here, like it's been reported in public that there's issues in the industry around the chip shortages and the forward effects of that on demand.

Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

OK. Is there any way that you can give us a sense of how your transformation of the productivity and your operational efficiencies and all that kind of stuff is working? Or there's just too much noise right now with labor shortages and supply chain and all that to really have any sense of if, if all your changes or like what kind of impact all the changes you've been making are having on the operations?

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

It's hard to -- this is Rod again. I mean, it's a great question. It's hard to give the analytics to validate what it is because it's such an unstable environment right now. But we can look at the disciplines we've put in place around purchasing to drive down cost, to offset inflation, the pricing disciplines we've put in place that's given us a positive price/cost.

We can look at what we've seen as significant upticks in absenteeism and issues related to productivity like missing parts and having to put something in a parking lot and go do rework on that we would not have done historically, and we're still seeing labor efficiency improvements, and you can see that through our margins. So it's hard to -- when you got such an unstable environment to kind of understand just how big the impact is. But the best way to look at it is, despite all these inefficiencies and headwinds and the shortages of revenue we've had, we're still getting solid contribution margin. We're still getting good discipline and drop-throughs in our margin expansion, and it's real earnings because you see it converting to cash.

So it's a positive operational story that we just wish we had a positive revenue story to tell what they did as well. But we're battling that every day, and we're making good progress. So that's odd answer. I don't know if you have any other questions on that.

Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

No, that's good. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Operator

Our next question is from Jamie Cook with Credit Suisse. Please proceed.

Jamie Cook -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

OK. I guess, my question, you commented on sort of margin -- your margin targets for 2023. You're still sort of comfortable with that. At your analyst day, you also gave sort of revenue growth targets, I think, of 1.5% to sort of 2% by 2023.

Just wondering how you're thinking about that, given the backlog and then some of the stimulus and infrastructure bill that we could have and how that impacts margins? Could there be potential upside to margins because of that? Thank you.

Mark Skonieczny -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Jamie, I think as we build out '22 heading into '23, that's a discussion we're having with the backlog. And the challenge is here, as Rod mentioned, it's not the fact that we don't have backlog. We have to drive the throughput, right? So it's really a throughput discussion here in the component supply. So as we demonstrated in the second quarter, when we had the inventory, we were able to drive throughput, as we had discussed in our previous earnings call.

So I think it comes down to what our visibility is to supply chain? Do we have chassis availability, and our ability to accelerate that throughput. Because as Rob mentioned, I do think we have implemented several programs that have driven throughput improvements, but right now, we're being offset by the amount of rework in the offsite glimpse building that we're doing. So I think from that perspective, we'll be recasting as we look into '22 with the entering backlog, as someone previously said, will be very strong. So it's all around our throughput and our capabilities to have people and supply to execute against that.

But I do think there's opportunity there to deliver on that, especially with the reduction that we've just announced here exiting '21.

Jamie Cook -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

OK, thank you very much.

Mark Skonieczny -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes, thank you.

Operator

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Rod for closing comments.

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, thank you. I want to thank everybody for joining today. Obviously, we've probably talked to death about the challenges that's facing the broader industry we're dealing with. But I do think that the bright star is our customers continue to deliver orders to us.

We're seeing great growth. We're seeing markets that are very receptive to the new offerings that we're bringing forward. And from a fundamentals basis, going back to the second last question we got asked, when you look at the execution of the business and with all the headwinds we're facing and the margin expansions and what we'll be able to accomplish in the last year, I'm pretty proud of what this team has done, and I'm confident in the direction that we're going. We just got to get some of these external challenges behind us.

And that's what we're working hard with our supply base, as you can imagine. But our focus is always on doing its commitments and improving our performance. And I think we've got to begin to build a track record on that. The work is not finished, but we're very excited about continuing to drive improvement through the REV drive business system that we put in place and meeting the commands we've put in place.

So again, I appreciate the call, and I look forward to talking to you guys in months. Have a good day.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 46 minutes

Call participants:

Drew Konop -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development

Rod Rushing -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Mark Skonieczny -- Chief Financial Officer

Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Courtney Yakavonis -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Joel Tiss -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

Jamie Cook -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

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