How Does a TMS Improve Truck Maintenance and Productivity?
Published:Oct 27, 2025
4 min. read
Truck repairs and maintenance can be expensive and will impact the bottom line for trucking and freight companies — both in terms of repair costs, parts costs, and the cost of downtime. This makes it critical for trucking and freight companies to pay close attention to preventative maintenance and repair costs that will impact the bottom line for many companies.
A Transportation Management System (TMS) has the capabilities to help you monitor and predict maintenance and repair needs for your fleet vehicles. This has many trucking companies asking — how does a TMS improve truck maintenance and productivity? TenTrucks may be able to help answer your questions.
5 Ways a TMS Improves Truck Maintenance and Productivity
Did you know that commercial trucks will receive an average of $15,000 in repairs and maintenance each year? This can add up to a substantial number for freight companies with a fleet of Class 8 commercial trucks and will reduce profits.
Expensive parts and repair costs can be minimized with preventative maintenance and timely repairs that prevent small mechanical issues from becoming major repairs and excessive downtime. A Transportation Management System can help trucking and freight companies to better maintain fleet vehicles and in turn, promote improved efficiency and productivity.
Here is a closer look at how a TMS platform — like TenTrucks TMS — can make preventative maintenance simpler and improve productivity:
1. Preventative Maintenance Reminders
A high-quality Transportation Management System has the ability to automate maintenance reminders based on multiple factors that can include — engine hours, miles driven, established time intervals, advanced telematics data, and more. Maintenance reminders help ensure that fleet vehicles receive regular maintenance for oil changes, tire rotations, brake inspections, and more that help ensure fleet vehicles are running at peak performance and that minor repair issues do not turn into major mechanic failures that cost more money.
2. Predictive Analytics and Insights
A key element of a Transportation Management System platform is its ability to sift through massive amounts of data and analytics to reveal key data points that can help you make your freight operations more efficient, effective, and productive. When integrated with Electronic Logging Devices (ELD) and Electronic Control Modules, your TMS platform can provide valuable insight on vehicle health and performance, from engine performance and tire pressure to fluid levels and engine hours. This helps you better predict when fleet vehicles may need repairs and extend the lifespan of fleet vehicles.
3. Increased Visibility of Fleet Vehicles
Electronic Logging Devices provide increased visibility of fleet vehicles on the road and when you are at your home base. This real-time visibility allows you to better track the location and operational status of your trucks. With the ability to see the location and status of every vehicle in your fleet in real time, you will know when vehicles experience mechanical issues and need to be taken out of service for repairs, which in turn allows you to be more proactive. When paired with route planning software, this increased visibility helps you minimize the amount of hard miles put on a truck and helps you better communicate potential delays with customers.
4. Improved Inventory Management
Is it time to purchase new trucks for your fleet? Do you need to purchase parts for regular maintenance and repairs? A Transportation Management System can help you track and manage your parts inventory to help ensure that you always have the parts you need on hand for routine maintenance. This simplifies management of your fleet inventory and improves the overall maintenance process, which translates to increased productivity.
5. Automated Documents and Administration
The documentation and administrative tasks that go hand in hand with fleet maintenance and management can take time and money. The right TMS platform has the ability to automate many day-to-day administrative tasks and documents that are a part of the fleet maintenance process, that can include automating maintenance logs, fuel records, parts inventory reports, and compliance documents. This helps save time for your fleet management team and reduces the potential for errors.
READ MORE: What Is the Trucking Industry Outlook for 2026?
Are you looking for ways to improve fleet maintenance for your freight company? You may have questions like — how does a TMS improve truck maintenance and productivity? We hope that this overview created by TenTrucks has provided answers to your questions and will help you improve fleet maintenance in the future.
Contact TenTrucks today to learn more about our TenTrucks TMS platform and dispatching services!