Every trucking company understands the loss of revenue when one of their trucks is disabled, but not every company is aware of how to prevent truck downtime through routine maintenance.

Scheduled maintenance can keep trucks running, and the maintenance will keep revenue coming in. There are many maintenance checkpoints and each truck has a different schedule.

In the complex world of truck design, it is nearly impossible to maintain a manual schedule for each truck.

In addition to maintenance, the trucks' mileage should be calculated ongoing. If the mileage declines over a period of time, then it is time to find the cause. Poor mileage is a drag on profits with the price of truck fuel. It also takes time to fill the tank more frequently, and the tank may need to be filled at a high priced fueling station rather than the customary station.

Truck maintenance involves many scheduled preventative maintenance services. Ignoring or postponing these services will ultimately result in costly repairs, truck down time, and lost revenue. The aggravation factor may not have a cost, but why suffer through it when a maintenance schedule can prevent it. The maintenance schedule should be available to the dispatcher so that the truck is not scheduled for a trip during this period.

The old way of scheduling maintenance that required the fleet manager to keep a large pad of paper with each date for maintenance is gone. The trucks are too complicate and more data is needed such as fuel economy and oil changes.

In the high-tech world of truck fleet management that is available to every trucking company it is very easy to automate all fleet management data. Computer systems can include scheduling the trucks, truck fleet management, as well as tracking parts management. A good system can tell the fleet manages when to order maintenance parts based on usage.

Fleet truck management software keeps track of the trucks' histories, as well as total fuel costs and the miles per gallon performance of each truck. A good software system can automatically reorder maintenance parts. Some systems offer the new €in-vehicle telematics device€ that records many pieces of data. This feeds back utilization and diagnostic information, and this is valuable data for nearly real time data usage.

Some valuable reminders can be automated as part of fleet truck data bases. Keeping track of tire replacement requirements and warranty schedule management are important items. Keeping track of the many license and permit renewals can be automated. Many systems will track the drivers' control, speed and downtime.

The software programs that are available to trucking companies do not cost; they save money.