October 22, 2025 • 32 mins
Explore the trends in transportation management systems used by trucking fleets, as we talk to Tucker Freight Lines about its journey in implementing new TMS technologies, and get some insight from its technology partner.
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Key Takeaways:
- Cloud technology is a key enabler for modern TMS.
- AI is increasingly integrated into TMS solutions.
- Integration of maintenance and TMS improves efficiency.
- Change management is crucial for technology adoption.
- Testing is essential before going live with new TMS systems.
- Partnership with reliable vendors is vital for success.
- Defining success early helps in TMS implementation.
Dig Deeper into Artificial Intelligence
Inside the AI Revolution in Logistics: Insights from Trimble’s Roundtable
Tips for Successful AI Adoption for Trucking Companies
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Tucker Freight Lines was dealingwith the same IT challenges that
a lot of trucking fleets face today.
Computer software programs that didn't talk to each other, lots
of manual, intensive data entry,Excel spreadsheets and
cybersecurity. So they decided to implement a
new transportation management software system for TMS.
I'm talking to Charles Martin. He's chief information officer
(00:23):
for Tucker Freight Lines and Adam Alderman, he is the
customer success manager for Trimble, who he worked with on
the project. And we're going to get some
insights into what Tucker has done.
And how about ties into some larger TMS trends that fleet
should be aware of. I'm Deborah Lockridge and this
is HTT Talk Trucking. So I'm Charles Martin.
(00:48):
I'm the CIO here at Tucker Freight Lines.
Tucker Freight Lines is in Dubuque, IA and we've been here,
I've been on board for a little over three years.
The company was acquired and I want to say we're about 7 years
old. So the owners, AJ and Sonny
(01:12):
Tucker acquired the company fromArt Paper, smaller company here.
So they've been in business. This is about year, year 8 or so
and we've experienced a good amount of growth from the high
teens or 20s tractor units to we're about two 200 plus now and
1000 or so better trailers. We do van and open deck and some
(01:37):
dedicated lanes as well. So just, you know, we got a
system TMS that we that was implemented early and we've
worked to improve the functions of the TMS to business grow I.
Guess what? What are some of the things that
(01:58):
you're looking for in a TMS and that made you realize you had
that to do some upgrades? OK, my background is that I've,
I'm an accountant by, by, by degree, but I've been working
with TMSS for probably 2020 or so years.
When I came in three years ago, they were about two, about 3 or
4 years into the implementation.So what we did was we looked at
(02:22):
the version that we had, we looked at some of the strengths
and weaknesses and we decided that we needed to do, AI would
call it a reimplementation for a, a process full process
improvement. So we had an older version, you
know, we had some missing functionality.
We probably underused the systemand there was just a large
(02:45):
expectation of what we needed todo.
So looked at and been able to measure some considerable
process improvements, measurablefunctional improvements as far
as our reporting is concerned. I know there's been a lot going
on in this area over the past several years with them
(03:06):
telematics and integrations and AI and cloud computing and
cybersecurity and all sorts of things that I'm sure make what
you're using today rather different from what that might
have been eight years ago beforeyou decided to put something new
in. Adam, can you speak a little bit
to kind of the overall trends we're seeing in this area?
(03:29):
Yeah, absolutely. You know what I think of of the
top kind of trends going on right now, it's hard to ignore
the buzzwords, right, the AI andand you know how to kind of
leverage those type of technologies.
And so, you know, but when I think of the realities on the
ground for, for carriers around the country, whether it's
(03:51):
Tucker, Freight or, you know, some of the biggest names you've
ever heard, right, the cloud is still the number one trend,
right? Because the reality here is, is
that the cloud is, is an unlock and is an enabler.
It, it allows for connectivity, increased security, scalability.
(04:12):
And you know, when you take those three kind of major
cornerstones of what, what a modern tech stack becomes,
right? You're really talking about how
do I build an infrastructure that allows me digital
infrastructure that allows me totake my physical infrastructure
and keep it moving, keep it secure and keep it growing,
(04:35):
right? And so the way I see it is the
cloud is continues to power those unlocks for carriers all
over throughout all niches, right?
And so when you talk about connectivity, not just between
your partners and your customers, right, but also
between your actual physical assets, you know, are you
connected to your trailers? Do you know where they are at
(04:56):
all times, even as as granular as where in the lock do they
exist? You know, so you have the
connectivity that kind of enables live visibility,
accurate ET as asset tracking, planning, analysis and
forecasting. So, you know, it really is being
connected is inevitably easier once you're in the cloud and it
(05:18):
unlocks a lot of really great feature sets.
And, you know, in a lot of ways expected visibility, if you
will, from a customer perspective.
You know, I mean, we're, we're living in a world now where
Amazon seems to know when our package is going to be there
before it even leaves the warehouse, right.
And so, you know, we all gain this kind of expectation of, of
(05:41):
visibility on the security front.
Security, especially cybersecurity, is a cornerstone
of how we protect our profits, our our revenues, our
businesses. You know, the cloud enables a
trucking company to worry about what its core conferences are,
while you have experts in cybersecurity working to secure
(06:06):
your environments at all times. And the cloud enables
scalability seamlessly. And so as you grow and, and
unfortunately, sometimes as, as you, you may, you know, do the
opposite of growth, right? It's easier in the cloud, in
those type of infrastructures toutilize what you need.
And, you know, then you think ofsome of the other trends, right?
(06:27):
AII mean you can't get away fromthis buzz, right?
But without the cloud existing, it's really hard to leverage AI
because AI also lives in the cloud.
So, you know, the way I see it is AI is everywhere in 2025.
I know my organization uses it for quite diverse list of of
things. You know, that trend will only
continue. And I think my #1 cornerstone
(06:50):
when I think of AI is, is how dowe deploy in a thoughtful and
responsible manner? Because at the end of the day,
this is a human world and we want to keep it that way, you
know? And so, yeah, it can help with
simple tasks like like reducing data entry, especially, you
know, when you're entering the same truck number into 10
different systems. Sometimes it's nice to have a,
(07:12):
you know, an assistant if you will, or, or some workflows that
help to automate those things. But but then it can also be
cutting edge, right? So transporion, one of the
Trimble companies does really dynamic AI, automated freight
procurement. So, so like if the carrier is
offered a load, the AI almost can make the decision for you,
(07:34):
of course, alongside a human. And that's where that
thoughtfulness comes into place,right?
Of course, there's plenty of other applications where AI can
be a game shooter from the perspective of predicting
demand, optimizing routing, you know, and PC Mylar has been a
route optimizer for a long time,right?
(07:56):
That's another product on the triple roster, if you will.
But when you start to layer in AI now it's almost double
optimized, right. So as you can see, like, you
know, AI is not going anywhere, it's part of the trend, but I, I
categorize the top trend still as cloud AI being a layer under
it. And then I think my third and,
and, and again, this fits into avery similar picture here is
(08:19):
really around integrations, right?
Because how do we deploy some ofthese tools within our work
flows, within our niches, withinour, you know, the way we
conduct our businesses? Catscale Company provides the
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(08:42):
Look for the black and gold signto get the weights you know you
can trust. So, all right, so let's talk a
little bit about how these kind of bigger trends play out with
real world fleet that Charles isdoing at at Tucker.
And what are some of the ways that Charles that you're using
(09:03):
some of these things with with the changes you've been making?
So one of the changes we did go to cloud.
So we have implemented cloud SASand the benefits were pretty
immediate, more of a single point of entry security.
We've been saying so much about security that the SAS has
(09:23):
allowed us to take away some of the burden of of monitoring and
watching the systems. It's a all in one spot, which is
also a benefit for us. The again, same, same buzzwords,
the integrations that we've had,we we feel secure that those
(09:44):
integrations based on the fact that we are in a cloud and it's
all being hosted are, are good. So that we don't have, if you
will, runaway, runaway process of runaway technologies, which
we had. And that was part of the reason
for us making one of the changesmentioned, AI, obviously we've
(10:05):
implemented AI, but we've implemented and are implementing
AI in this respect. We're not looking just some
people think AI is meant to replace head count, you know.
So yeah, I can get AI and I can get you know, reduction of XX
factor and headcount. Now we're looking at it to
supplement the processes. First to help us we, we are
(10:29):
doing accepting low tenders via AI.
We're doing some some other things with voice text to, to
make us more efficient. And as that process improves,
you'll, you'll realize the efficiencies and we like to
think that we reallocate our resources as opposed to looking
at the approach of replacing, we're looking at reallocating
(10:52):
resources to make us more efficient in other areas.
You see an accelerator? An accelerator.
Yeah, Yeah, exactly. So the the partners that we
have, we've re evaluated as partof our TMS review, we've looked
at the partners that we have. In fact the cloud, we went to a
(11:14):
a cloud EDI program. We're looking at some of our
other vendors that, that just don't fit in in the overall
integration model. So the other part is from you
asked me about our systems, we were able to link our system.
So we had ATMs, we had a maintenance program, we had all
(11:37):
of these other things that were in their own separate silos.
We've been able to take our systems and and make them
integrate it and work very tightly so that we eliminate
those silos. A separate reporting, we've
centralized our reporting to 11,if you will, we use Domo.
(11:57):
So people, Tableau, Domo, Power BI, whatever it is, but we've
centralized our reporting so that when we come to meetings,
we're all reading out of the same playbook.
I. Think one of the things that is
really dynamic about the interconnectivity, especially
your TMS and your maintenance software, is the human aspect
(12:18):
that gets locked in a little bit, right?
You know, we can get fancy talk about layering AI and all this,
but the idea that you can have your finger on the pulse of your
truck's maintenance schedule andfigure that in to how you're
planning your routes. That's about protecting your
drivers. Yes, it's also about protecting
your assets, but it's mainly about protecting your drivers.
The last thing you would ever want to do as as a dispatcher is
(12:42):
send a driver out and then have a truck, a tire explode on them
or whatever it is, right? And so some of these tools allow
us to be predictive as well as just kind of understand, Hey,
this this tire hasn't been changed in, you know, X amount
of miles. We ought to get into the shop
before we send the driver out onit.
And so I think it it goes back to an ability to to continue to
(13:02):
be thoughtful about how you deploy these technologies.
There's all kinds of new stuff coming out on the daily basis,
all the emerging technologies, support for us to find out where
they fit and all of them don't fit for us.
We, you know, we have to decipher what's going to be best
and where we're going to get ourbest return on investment and
and work towards those. Charles, what are some of the
(13:25):
things that you've been able to integrate or make more efficient
or some of the success stories you've had with the new
software? Most successful.
The biggest success story we hadwas basically getting our our
software that we have in house and doing all the process
improvements to make sure that they communicate.
(13:46):
When I got here, our maintenancesoftware did not talk to our TMS
software. So that if you ask me for the
crown jewel, that's been one of the biggest ones that we
communicate we can do PMS. Our, our shop guy knows when to
tell operations when he's got topull a truck out because you
know it's, it's going to fail aninspection out.
(14:08):
So that's been probably the biggest.
The second largest I would dare say is our reporting that we've
been able to consolidate all of our reporting and to, to
actually see where our units are, what they, what the real
costs are, what the real expenses are so that we can
determine if we're being profitable or not.
(14:31):
Lanes being profitable, we're still working at those things,
but we we feel better about isolating and, and our RE
implementation, if we will. One of the things that we did
was we re implemented our TMS tomake sure that we had the proper
labels and the proper accounts built so that we can accurately
(14:53):
measure our profitability. Yeah.
And I think that actually speaksreally nicely to another
benefit, if you will, of the cloud is the idea of being able
to leverage big data and and usethat data to help make decisions
right now. Interestingly, AI can also help
with that, but it, it requires, you know, a deep understanding
of not just what the data shows,but how you operate your
(15:16):
business, how your business is different than others and, and
why that big data means this definition to how you're going
to adjust operations. And so I, I, I kind of want to
echo what, what Charles is saying here about how important
the data piece is to kind of completing the puzzle of the
modern, you know, carrier text. Stack sometimes adopting new
technology as far as people can be challenging.
(15:40):
You get people that are scared that AI is going to take the
jobs or just being able to use the system effectively.
So wonder maybe kind of some of the things of that change
management of how you, you know,how you do that implementation
to where it's really doing the best that it can do.
So from from my perspective, I think we've done a good job of
(16:04):
presenting our technology stack as an enhancement, just what I
mentioned before, not a replacement.
And some of the tools we use, I mean, we went to project
management, project management tool.
So we lay out the project line, we show what the steps are and
it helps our users and everyone else understand what to expect
(16:26):
and what's coming. And sometimes people get fearful
if you just don't know. And we try to enable our users
and inform our users so that there's not that that fear
factor. Yeah.
I think, I think it starts with being thoughtful and kind of
defining success. Like what do we want out of
this? If we can put that destination
(16:47):
on a map, it's much easier to get there than have the
ambiguity of what is our goal here, you know.
So I think that that's a cornerstone of a successful
training program or implementation program.
So Charles, what were some of those those goals that you're
going for the. System just wasn't working.
We were you know, the reporting was coming from if you will,
(17:07):
it's granular but order scrolls instead of other reports.
And when people came the the numbers just didn't match it.
It was a full overhaul if you will.
We went from using Excel to again using our reporting
systems. It goes even further it, it went
from on boarding to off boardingas far as our systems are
(17:31):
concerned. So again, some other
integrations from recruiting software to CRM software.
But it gets to the, it gets to the mothership, if you will, the
TMS so that we could do our business.
That's, that's the hub of all ofthose things.
So yeah, we, we had to redo SOP's.
(17:53):
We had to retrain people, we hadto restructure our entire TMS
with as far as labels. We've restructured our
accounting system as far as chart of accounts in order to
get segments of reporting for profitability.
It's it's been a full overhaul. And fortunately, we were able to
(18:13):
form a, a partnership with our, our vendor Trumbull that that
that helped us at one point we did, we looked at selecting
another TMS, the evaluation was the cost of reimplementing or
the cost of rebuilding and we chose the the latter instead of
(18:34):
the former. We rebuilt and we're still on
the path. We're not there and you know.
Yeah, that sounds like a a very,there's a lot involved there.
And, and where do you even figure out how to start, Adam,
when you're doing that kind of thing where you've got it
through every area of the company, you know, where do you
forgot where to start in that process?
I think it starts with admittingthat there's room for a lot of
(18:57):
improvement. You know, I, I know it it when I
think about when, when me and Charles were, were kind of first
introduced and we started heading down the path together.
I think the two cornerstones that we, we knew about were at
the time that we wanted, you know, the overarching, if you
will, was about being able to leverage our data, right?
And then and then performance, right.
(19:17):
We need to also be able to have ATMs that's going to perform as
we need it to. And, and as Charles
immeasurably. Yeah.
And, and as Charles was suggesting, it's like these are
complex systems that have 10, you know, tons of integrations
and they, they really are the, the central nervous system of,
of your trucking company, especially from a digital
perspective. And so, you know, I think you
(19:40):
got to start by admitting that there's room for improvement.
And it's sometimes a hard, it's,it's a hard thing to admit for
some companies, right? The TMS touches, you know quite
a bit. So you have to really come from
a holistic perspective and thinkabout your entire text stack,
your entire functionality withinyour organization from the
simple to the complex and everything in between.
(20:02):
You really can't leave anything out.
There is no stone that you can you should leave unturned
because in theory, if you are going to deploy this technology,
the TMS technology and and the aligned integrated technologies.
You have to understand what it all is that you're trying to
(20:23):
accomplish. You know, it comes back to what
I said before. You got to define your success
early. You start by understanding what
your true goals are, understanding what your
processes truly are. Everything in the business from
how you're maintaining to how you're paying your employees to
how you're even hiring. Like it all matters.
Like your training program, Likeeverything in between.
(20:43):
Charles, you said kind of one ofthe big things that you really
were looking at was getting the maintenance integrated with the
TMS, not having those silos. What have been some of the
benefits of of that of having your maintenance software and
your TMS and everything all integrated?
We've we've realized where whereour costs are missing.
(21:05):
We've as far as of doing those integrations, we we've
immediately found where are the weaknesses.
So you know, we found inventory discrepancies that we wouldn't
have known because we just wasn't talking.
We found that we are able to be more efficient with, with our
preventative maintenance, our learning systems, just in
(21:29):
general planning, purchase planning for our shop where
we're still still working on that.
But the, the meet, the benefits were immediate.
We spent, we had a, if you will,a quasi system, a quasi
maintenance system for preventive maintenance because
(21:50):
we weren't using them, they weren't integrating.
And I think if we go back, I think we were spending about 10
man hours per week model, you know, getting a, a subversive
preventive maintenance system toto track that, that all we had
to do was integrate it and and implement the maintenance.
(22:12):
So they're the return on that investment has been been
impressive time and money. I would say this, carriers that
are not leveraging preventive maintenance techniques as well
as not integrated within their TMS environment are leaving a
very important piece of the puzzle off the table and and
(22:34):
that goes for owner operators all the way on up to the biggest
food signature. And I just mentioned we talked
about SAS earlier. So at one point there was a
maintenance software that sat here and there was the TMS that
sat there. And while they're still separate
softwares we've made, we've got both of them in a SAS
(22:55):
environment. So and then they also
communicate still. So there's been the efficiencies
gained from both the SAS implementation and from the
integration. Yeah, bring them from here and
here to here. A buzzword I've hear a lot
(23:15):
lately is the a single pane of glass of being able to see
everything in one place. Thoughts there?
I would agree. I mean essentially they owe one
of the other overall goals for us.
What we want is a all in one data point of entry.
When we enter a truck, when we enter an employee, when we enter
(23:39):
a a trailer, something in the system, I want one single point
of entry and I want it to to touch every other system that's
needed. What we've done is create SOP's,
our operating procedures. We that was another point of
emphasis that I had, that we have to have things documented
(24:01):
on how we're doing this so that a, A is doing it the same as B&C
or even better yet that we only have A doing it because we've
got a single point of entry, butwe've got an SOP on how to do
it. We had a lot of duplication
before. And, and I, I, I echo a lot of
what Charles just just mentioned.
(24:22):
I mean, I think single, single data entry point, it is
critical. And I, I see organizations all
over the country, whether they're shippers or carriers,
really striving for that becausethe last thing anybody wants to
do is, is enter the same data insix systems that don't
communicate well together, You know, 1 little typo.
(24:43):
And in some cases something as sensitive as a capital letter
versus a lowercase letter could,can mean the difference between
workflow failing or workflow succeed.
But to, to bring it back to the single pane, I see from a design
perspective, this concept being driven home really in all three
(25:04):
of the Trimble TMS products. When I think about the future of
TMW Suite, when I think of the future of Truck Mate, when I
think the innovative, these systems are extremely complex
systems that have the ability tolook at almost unlimited amounts
of data spliced in different ways.
(25:24):
How do I, from my function, get the data that I need in front of
me quickly and reduce the amountof clicks, the amount of letters
I have to type, the amount of, you know, shortcuts I have to
get to? How do I make this easier on me?
You know, and obviously historically, right, we say, OK,
well you have three monitors andthen you put one thing on one
monitor and another thing on thewe have to be smarter from a
(25:46):
design perspective. But of course this is a role
based idea, right? Dispatcher needs something
different than an accounting person, right?
And maintenance person needs something very different than a
dispatcher. And of course we can go on and
on. And and you know, the CEO or the
CTO needs something very different than all the rest of
them. So I think the single.
Pane where we want all of those things.
(26:08):
Yes. And, and you know, I think the
single pane is, is something that we all desire.
I think that there's no one way of doing it.
I think what you really want is you want configurability within
your, within your UI, within your user interface that allows
you to pick and choose what is the most important to you.
So I think that the the single pane is is critical as we move
(26:28):
forward here, but critical defined differently depending on
the organization and the role ofthings.
George, you've mentioned future technologies a couple of times.
What are you looking to do? Maybe in the future?
What kinds of things are you looking at?
I'm going to. Get my notepad out.
So, you know, I'll, I'll be looking to see what, what our,
(26:52):
our vendor partner has to offer as far as future technologies.
You know, we, we obviously want to, to, to hit, we want A1
button, A1 button answer. But for us specifically and
granularly, we're looking for solutions for things total male,
which is our communication. We're looking for improvements
(27:16):
in routing solutions. We say routing solutions how how
a truck gets from point A to point B with all the variations,
all of the fuel stops in betweenthe hours of services included.
There's just a host of things that right now just don't seem
to to run seamlessly. We, you know, bidding, you know,
(27:40):
we, we've got a lot of things that we would like integrated
into the bidding process. And there's, there's a lot of
products out there and there's, you know, some, some bidding
software. A lot of it's still done in
Excel spreadsheets unfortunately, but we'd like to
see that all incorporated in a future TMS where it goes
(28:01):
completely from A-Z, from from as far as routing as far as
that's concerned, even from onboarding to offboarding, that
it's more seamless and and secure.
That's the other, the bigger, the bigger part of future
technology is security, that we can get things locked up and
(28:24):
locked down and not be so worried.
If you ask what keeps me awake at night, it is the one person
that's going to get through our security, despite the hundreds
of thousands that we spend that there's a, you know, that
there's a a little vulnerabilityright there that that we miss
somehow and we want the assistance of our.
(28:45):
Our that's going to be helpful working with somebody like
Trimble that sees this across all their customers and able to
monitor it as opposed to when companies with, you know, all
kind of had their own little Yeah, they, they're a 400
mainframe computer. Well, that was one of the
(29:06):
changes. I think when I first came on
board, that was one of the firstthings that, you know, they,
they were looking at bringing iton Prem and that that was just
that was not future looking for me that that we've moved the
opposite direction. I think as far as monitoring, it
takes the burden off of us locally and it allows us as a
trucking company to focus on what we need to do, which is.
(29:28):
Any final advice from either of you as to what trucking
companies might want to be thinking about when it comes to
their TMS and how to improve it,how to better use it, how to get
a new one? Advice, Adam.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I know we touched on
it a bit, but I, but I think I really think the first step when
(29:52):
you're going to picture new technology is defining success,
right? What, what are you trying to
accomplish? And, and when I accomplish it,
what, what had, what is the result of this accomplishment,
right? So that way you can start to
build the road map even before you met an event.
I think you also have to understand what you already have
(30:12):
and what you don't have. And so you know, really from a
very kind of direct perspective,you have to inventory every
process and every, every, you know, touch, if you will.
I think when you're onboarding and, and especially with a new
TMS, but even with some of the smaller pieces of the puzzle,
you really have to also design roles and create trainings based
(30:33):
on those roles and make sure that people understand what
their role is versus what someone else's role is.
I think as you move to the process, testing thoroughly, you
know, this is a challenge, I think for a lot of organizations
because it's like, you know, youstart to test and if everything
seems right and then you do likea, a, a, an edge case test and,
and it seems to work right. And, and you say, OK, well,
(30:54):
we've done, we've done 4 tests and, and now, you know, it seems
like we're good to go. Well, go live.
Day comes around and all the sudden things that in theory
should have been tested are failing pretty directly and and
instantaneously. So, so Charles, based on what
you've been experiencing these past few years, what advice
would you have? One, you've got a, you've got a
(31:15):
partner with, with a reliable vendor, you have to have that
because you've got to have some confidence and trust in in that
they're going to have the wherewithal to get you to to
your desired goal. Two, you need to have good
processes in place. So I think we the end we used to
say make sure you understand theas is before you can define the
(31:39):
to be so future state, current state and make sure that you've
got a path to get there and dot in procedures that will get you
there successfully. And just make sure that you do.
Adam mentioned you've got a testyou've got to go through and and
test these things out. We've gone through, I think
(31:59):
we've with Adam, I've gone through this is the third one
that we've made some significantchanges, upgrades, etcetera.
And the testing process has justgotten better.
So the tool, if I were to offer to another carrier is make sure
that you're using some type of project planner that you've got
those processes and you can see it.
I'm a visual learner and when I see the, when I see it and I see
(32:23):
a full process, I see, you know,the prelims, the challenges, the
third party integrations, the testing, the smoke testing and
then the, the, the goal live. That's what I can see.
That's what I can work with. Great.
Well, I appreciate. Thank you so much, Charles and
Adam for taking the time to talkto me today about TMS trends and
(32:44):
implementations and advice. Thank.
You, Deborah. Thank you.
Tucker Freight Lines was dealingwith the same IT challenges that
a lot of trucking fleets face today.
Computer software programs that didn't talk to each other, lots
of manual, intensive data entry,Excel spreadsheets and
cybersecurity. So they decided to implement a
new transportation management software system for TMS.
I'm talking to Charles Martin. He's chief information officer
(00:23):
for Tucker Freight Lines and Adam Alderman, he is the
customer success manager for Trimble, who he worked with on
the project. And we're going to get some
insights into what Tucker has done.
And how about ties into some larger TMS trends that fleet
should be aware of. I'm Deborah Lockridge and this
is HTT Talk Trucking. So I'm Charles Martin.
(00:48):
I'm the CIO here at Tucker Freight Lines.
Tucker Freight Lines is in Dubuque, IA and we've been here,
I've been on board for a little over three years.
The company was acquired and I want to say we're about 7 years
old. So the owners, AJ and Sonny
(01:12):
Tucker acquired the company fromArt Paper, smaller company here.
So they've been in business. This is about year, year 8 or so
and we've experienced a good amount of growth from the high
teens or 20s tractor units to we're about two 200 plus now and
1000 or so better trailers. We do van and open deck and some
(01:37):
dedicated lanes as well. So just, you know, we got a
system TMS that we that was implemented early and we've
worked to improve the functions of the TMS to business grow I.
Guess what? What are some of the things that
(01:58):
you're looking for in a TMS and that made you realize you had
that to do some upgrades? OK, my background is that I've,
I'm an accountant by, by, by degree, but I've been working
with TMSS for probably 2020 or so years.
When I came in three years ago, they were about two, about 3 or
4 years into the implementation.So what we did was we looked at
(02:22):
the version that we had, we looked at some of the strengths
and weaknesses and we decided that we needed to do, AI would
call it a reimplementation for a, a process full process
improvement. So we had an older version, you
know, we had some missing functionality.
We probably underused the systemand there was just a large
(02:45):
expectation of what we needed todo.
So looked at and been able to measure some considerable
process improvements, measurablefunctional improvements as far
as our reporting is concerned. I know there's been a lot going
on in this area over the past several years with them
(03:06):
telematics and integrations and AI and cloud computing and
cybersecurity and all sorts of things that I'm sure make what
you're using today rather different from what that might
have been eight years ago beforeyou decided to put something new
in. Adam, can you speak a little bit
to kind of the overall trends we're seeing in this area?
(03:29):
Yeah, absolutely. You know what I think of of the
top kind of trends going on right now, it's hard to ignore
the buzzwords, right, the AI andand you know how to kind of
leverage those type of technologies.
And so, you know, but when I think of the realities on the
ground for, for carriers around the country, whether it's
(03:51):
Tucker, Freight or, you know, some of the biggest names you've
ever heard, right, the cloud is still the number one trend,
right? Because the reality here is, is
that the cloud is, is an unlock and is an enabler.
It, it allows for connectivity, increased security, scalability.
(04:12):
And you know, when you take those three kind of major
cornerstones of what, what a modern tech stack becomes,
right? You're really talking about how
do I build an infrastructure that allows me digital
infrastructure that allows me totake my physical infrastructure
and keep it moving, keep it secure and keep it growing,
(04:35):
right? And so the way I see it is the
cloud is continues to power those unlocks for carriers all
over throughout all niches, right?
And so when you talk about connectivity, not just between
your partners and your customers, right, but also
between your actual physical assets, you know, are you
connected to your trailers? Do you know where they are at
(04:56):
all times, even as as granular as where in the lock do they
exist? You know, so you have the
connectivity that kind of enables live visibility,
accurate ET as asset tracking, planning, analysis and
forecasting. So, you know, it really is being
connected is inevitably easier once you're in the cloud and it
(05:18):
unlocks a lot of really great feature sets.
And, you know, in a lot of ways expected visibility, if you
will, from a customer perspective.
You know, I mean, we're, we're living in a world now where
Amazon seems to know when our package is going to be there
before it even leaves the warehouse, right.
And so, you know, we all gain this kind of expectation of, of
(05:41):
visibility on the security front.
Security, especially cybersecurity, is a cornerstone
of how we protect our profits, our our revenues, our
businesses. You know, the cloud enables a
trucking company to worry about what its core conferences are,
while you have experts in cybersecurity working to secure
(06:06):
your environments at all times. And the cloud enables
scalability seamlessly. And so as you grow and, and
unfortunately, sometimes as, as you, you may, you know, do the
opposite of growth, right? It's easier in the cloud, in
those type of infrastructures toutilize what you need.
And, you know, then you think ofsome of the other trends, right?
(06:27):
AII mean you can't get away fromthis buzz, right?
But without the cloud existing, it's really hard to leverage AI
because AI also lives in the cloud.
So, you know, the way I see it is AI is everywhere in 2025.
I know my organization uses it for quite diverse list of of
things. You know, that trend will only
continue. And I think my #1 cornerstone
(06:50):
when I think of AI is, is how dowe deploy in a thoughtful and
responsible manner? Because at the end of the day,
this is a human world and we want to keep it that way, you
know? And so, yeah, it can help with
simple tasks like like reducing data entry, especially, you
know, when you're entering the same truck number into 10
different systems. Sometimes it's nice to have a,
(07:12):
you know, an assistant if you will, or, or some workflows that
help to automate those things. But but then it can also be
cutting edge, right? So transporion, one of the
Trimble companies does really dynamic AI, automated freight
procurement. So, so like if the carrier is
offered a load, the AI almost can make the decision for you,
(07:34):
of course, alongside a human. And that's where that
thoughtfulness comes into place,right?
Of course, there's plenty of other applications where AI can
be a game shooter from the perspective of predicting
demand, optimizing routing, you know, and PC Mylar has been a
route optimizer for a long time,right?
(07:56):
That's another product on the triple roster, if you will.
But when you start to layer in AI now it's almost double
optimized, right. So as you can see, like, you
know, AI is not going anywhere, it's part of the trend, but I, I
categorize the top trend still as cloud AI being a layer under
it. And then I think my third and,
and, and again, this fits into avery similar picture here is
(08:19):
really around integrations, right?
Because how do we deploy some ofthese tools within our work
flows, within our niches, withinour, you know, the way we
conduct our businesses? Catscale Company provides the
professional driver with an accurate and certified weight.
We are the number one choice forprofessional drivers.
(08:42):
Look for the black and gold signto get the weights you know you
can trust. So, all right, so let's talk a
little bit about how these kind of bigger trends play out with
real world fleet that Charles isdoing at at Tucker.
And what are some of the ways that Charles that you're using
(09:03):
some of these things with with the changes you've been making?
So one of the changes we did go to cloud.
So we have implemented cloud SASand the benefits were pretty
immediate, more of a single point of entry security.
We've been saying so much about security that the SAS has
(09:23):
allowed us to take away some of the burden of of monitoring and
watching the systems. It's a all in one spot, which is
also a benefit for us. The again, same, same buzzwords,
the integrations that we've had,we we feel secure that those
(09:44):
integrations based on the fact that we are in a cloud and it's
all being hosted are, are good. So that we don't have, if you
will, runaway, runaway process of runaway technologies, which
we had. And that was part of the reason
for us making one of the changesmentioned, AI, obviously we've
(10:05):
implemented AI, but we've implemented and are implementing
AI in this respect. We're not looking just some
people think AI is meant to replace head count, you know.
So yeah, I can get AI and I can get you know, reduction of XX
factor and headcount. Now we're looking at it to
supplement the processes. First to help us we, we are
(10:29):
doing accepting low tenders via AI.
We're doing some some other things with voice text to, to
make us more efficient. And as that process improves,
you'll, you'll realize the efficiencies and we like to
think that we reallocate our resources as opposed to looking
at the approach of replacing, we're looking at reallocating
(10:52):
resources to make us more efficient in other areas.
You see an accelerator? An accelerator.
Yeah, Yeah, exactly. So the the partners that we
have, we've re evaluated as partof our TMS review, we've looked
at the partners that we have. In fact the cloud, we went to a
(11:14):
a cloud EDI program. We're looking at some of our
other vendors that, that just don't fit in in the overall
integration model. So the other part is from you
asked me about our systems, we were able to link our system.
So we had ATMs, we had a maintenance program, we had all
(11:37):
of these other things that were in their own separate silos.
We've been able to take our systems and and make them
integrate it and work very tightly so that we eliminate
those silos. A separate reporting, we've
centralized our reporting to 11,if you will, we use Domo.
(11:57):
So people, Tableau, Domo, Power BI, whatever it is, but we've
centralized our reporting so that when we come to meetings,
we're all reading out of the same playbook.
I. Think one of the things that is
really dynamic about the interconnectivity, especially
your TMS and your maintenance software, is the human aspect
(12:18):
that gets locked in a little bit, right?
You know, we can get fancy talk about layering AI and all this,
but the idea that you can have your finger on the pulse of your
truck's maintenance schedule andfigure that in to how you're
planning your routes. That's about protecting your
drivers. Yes, it's also about protecting
your assets, but it's mainly about protecting your drivers.
The last thing you would ever want to do as as a dispatcher is
(12:42):
send a driver out and then have a truck, a tire explode on them
or whatever it is, right? And so some of these tools allow
us to be predictive as well as just kind of understand, Hey,
this this tire hasn't been changed in, you know, X amount
of miles. We ought to get into the shop
before we send the driver out onit.
And so I think it it goes back to an ability to to continue to
(13:02):
be thoughtful about how you deploy these technologies.
There's all kinds of new stuff coming out on the daily basis,
all the emerging technologies, support for us to find out where
they fit and all of them don't fit for us.
We, you know, we have to decipher what's going to be best
and where we're going to get ourbest return on investment and
and work towards those. Charles, what are some of the
(13:25):
things that you've been able to integrate or make more efficient
or some of the success stories you've had with the new
software? Most successful.
The biggest success story we hadwas basically getting our our
software that we have in house and doing all the process
improvements to make sure that they communicate.
(13:46):
When I got here, our maintenancesoftware did not talk to our TMS
software. So that if you ask me for the
crown jewel, that's been one of the biggest ones that we
communicate we can do PMS. Our, our shop guy knows when to
tell operations when he's got topull a truck out because you
know it's, it's going to fail aninspection out.
(14:08):
So that's been probably the biggest.
The second largest I would dare say is our reporting that we've
been able to consolidate all of our reporting and to, to
actually see where our units are, what they, what the real
costs are, what the real expenses are so that we can
determine if we're being profitable or not.
(14:31):
Lanes being profitable, we're still working at those things,
but we we feel better about isolating and, and our RE
implementation, if we will. One of the things that we did
was we re implemented our TMS tomake sure that we had the proper
labels and the proper accounts built so that we can accurately
(14:53):
measure our profitability. Yeah.
And I think that actually speaksreally nicely to another
benefit, if you will, of the cloud is the idea of being able
to leverage big data and and usethat data to help make decisions
right now. Interestingly, AI can also help
with that, but it, it requires, you know, a deep understanding
of not just what the data shows,but how you operate your
(15:16):
business, how your business is different than others and, and
why that big data means this definition to how you're going
to adjust operations. And so I, I, I kind of want to
echo what, what Charles is saying here about how important
the data piece is to kind of completing the puzzle of the
modern, you know, carrier text. Stack sometimes adopting new
technology as far as people can be challenging.
(15:40):
You get people that are scared that AI is going to take the
jobs or just being able to use the system effectively.
So wonder maybe kind of some of the things of that change
management of how you, you know,how you do that implementation
to where it's really doing the best that it can do.
So from from my perspective, I think we've done a good job of
(16:04):
presenting our technology stack as an enhancement, just what I
mentioned before, not a replacement.
And some of the tools we use, I mean, we went to project
management, project management tool.
So we lay out the project line, we show what the steps are and
it helps our users and everyone else understand what to expect
(16:26):
and what's coming. And sometimes people get fearful
if you just don't know. And we try to enable our users
and inform our users so that there's not that that fear
factor. Yeah.
I think, I think it starts with being thoughtful and kind of
defining success. Like what do we want out of
this? If we can put that destination
(16:47):
on a map, it's much easier to get there than have the
ambiguity of what is our goal here, you know.
So I think that that's a cornerstone of a successful
training program or implementation program.
So Charles, what were some of those those goals that you're
going for the. System just wasn't working.
We were you know, the reporting was coming from if you will,
(17:07):
it's granular but order scrolls instead of other reports.
And when people came the the numbers just didn't match it.
It was a full overhaul if you will.
We went from using Excel to again using our reporting
systems. It goes even further it, it went
from on boarding to off boardingas far as our systems are
(17:31):
concerned. So again, some other
integrations from recruiting software to CRM software.
But it gets to the, it gets to the mothership, if you will, the
TMS so that we could do our business.
That's, that's the hub of all ofthose things.
So yeah, we, we had to redo SOP's.
(17:53):
We had to retrain people, we hadto restructure our entire TMS
with as far as labels. We've restructured our
accounting system as far as chart of accounts in order to
get segments of reporting for profitability.
It's it's been a full overhaul. And fortunately, we were able to
(18:13):
form a, a partnership with our, our vendor Trumbull that that
that helped us at one point we did, we looked at selecting
another TMS, the evaluation was the cost of reimplementing or
the cost of rebuilding and we chose the the latter instead of
(18:34):
the former. We rebuilt and we're still on
the path. We're not there and you know.
Yeah, that sounds like a a very,there's a lot involved there.
And, and where do you even figure out how to start, Adam,
when you're doing that kind of thing where you've got it
through every area of the company, you know, where do you
forgot where to start in that process?
I think it starts with admittingthat there's room for a lot of
(18:57):
improvement. You know, I, I know it it when I
think about when, when me and Charles were, were kind of first
introduced and we started heading down the path together.
I think the two cornerstones that we, we knew about were at
the time that we wanted, you know, the overarching, if you
will, was about being able to leverage our data, right?
And then and then performance, right.
(19:17):
We need to also be able to have ATMs that's going to perform as
we need it to. And, and as Charles
immeasurably. Yeah.
And, and as Charles was suggesting, it's like these are
complex systems that have 10, you know, tons of integrations
and they, they really are the, the central nervous system of,
of your trucking company, especially from a digital
perspective. And so, you know, I think you
(19:40):
got to start by admitting that there's room for improvement.
And it's sometimes a hard, it's,it's a hard thing to admit for
some companies, right? The TMS touches, you know quite
a bit. So you have to really come from
a holistic perspective and thinkabout your entire text stack,
your entire functionality withinyour organization from the
simple to the complex and everything in between.
(20:02):
You really can't leave anything out.
There is no stone that you can you should leave unturned
because in theory, if you are going to deploy this technology,
the TMS technology and and the aligned integrated technologies.
You have to understand what it all is that you're trying to
(20:23):
accomplish. You know, it comes back to what
I said before. You got to define your success
early. You start by understanding what
your true goals are, understanding what your
processes truly are. Everything in the business from
how you're maintaining to how you're paying your employees to
how you're even hiring. Like it all matters.
Like your training program, Likeeverything in between.
(20:43):
Charles, you said kind of one ofthe big things that you really
were looking at was getting the maintenance integrated with the
TMS, not having those silos. What have been some of the
benefits of of that of having your maintenance software and
your TMS and everything all integrated?
We've we've realized where whereour costs are missing.
(21:05):
We've as far as of doing those integrations, we we've
immediately found where are the weaknesses.
So you know, we found inventory discrepancies that we wouldn't
have known because we just wasn't talking.
We found that we are able to be more efficient with, with our
preventative maintenance, our learning systems, just in
(21:29):
general planning, purchase planning for our shop where
we're still still working on that.
But the, the meet, the benefits were immediate.
We spent, we had a, if you will,a quasi system, a quasi
maintenance system for preventive maintenance because
(21:50):
we weren't using them, they weren't integrating.
And I think if we go back, I think we were spending about 10
man hours per week model, you know, getting a, a subversive
preventive maintenance system toto track that, that all we had
to do was integrate it and and implement the maintenance.
(22:12):
So they're the return on that investment has been been
impressive time and money. I would say this, carriers that
are not leveraging preventive maintenance techniques as well
as not integrated within their TMS environment are leaving a
very important piece of the puzzle off the table and and
(22:34):
that goes for owner operators all the way on up to the biggest
food signature. And I just mentioned we talked
about SAS earlier. So at one point there was a
maintenance software that sat here and there was the TMS that
sat there. And while they're still separate
softwares we've made, we've got both of them in a SAS
(22:55):
environment. So and then they also
communicate still. So there's been the efficiencies
gained from both the SAS implementation and from the
integration. Yeah, bring them from here and
here to here. A buzzword I've hear a lot
(23:15):
lately is the a single pane of glass of being able to see
everything in one place. Thoughts there?
I would agree. I mean essentially they owe one
of the other overall goals for us.
What we want is a all in one data point of entry.
When we enter a truck, when we enter an employee, when we enter
(23:39):
a a trailer, something in the system, I want one single point
of entry and I want it to to touch every other system that's
needed. What we've done is create SOP's,
our operating procedures. We that was another point of
emphasis that I had, that we have to have things documented
(24:01):
on how we're doing this so that a, A is doing it the same as B&C
or even better yet that we only have A doing it because we've
got a single point of entry, butwe've got an SOP on how to do
it. We had a lot of duplication
before. And, and I, I, I echo a lot of
what Charles just just mentioned.
(24:22):
I mean, I think single, single data entry point, it is
critical. And I, I see organizations all
over the country, whether they're shippers or carriers,
really striving for that becausethe last thing anybody wants to
do is, is enter the same data insix systems that don't
communicate well together, You know, 1 little typo.
(24:43):
And in some cases something as sensitive as a capital letter
versus a lowercase letter could,can mean the difference between
workflow failing or workflow succeed.
But to, to bring it back to the single pane, I see from a design
perspective, this concept being driven home really in all three
(25:04):
of the Trimble TMS products. When I think about the future of
TMW Suite, when I think of the future of Truck Mate, when I
think the innovative, these systems are extremely complex
systems that have the ability tolook at almost unlimited amounts
of data spliced in different ways.
(25:24):
How do I, from my function, get the data that I need in front of
me quickly and reduce the amountof clicks, the amount of letters
I have to type, the amount of, you know, shortcuts I have to
get to? How do I make this easier on me?
You know, and obviously historically, right, we say, OK,
well you have three monitors andthen you put one thing on one
monitor and another thing on thewe have to be smarter from a
(25:46):
design perspective. But of course this is a role
based idea, right? Dispatcher needs something
different than an accounting person, right?
And maintenance person needs something very different than a
dispatcher. And of course we can go on and
on. And and you know, the CEO or the
CTO needs something very different than all the rest of
them. So I think the single.
Pane where we want all of those things.
(26:08):
Yes. And, and you know, I think the
single pane is, is something that we all desire.
I think that there's no one way of doing it.
I think what you really want is you want configurability within
your, within your UI, within your user interface that allows
you to pick and choose what is the most important to you.
So I think that the the single pane is is critical as we move
(26:28):
forward here, but critical defined differently depending on
the organization and the role ofthings.
George, you've mentioned future technologies a couple of times.
What are you looking to do? Maybe in the future?
What kinds of things are you looking at?
I'm going to. Get my notepad out.
So, you know, I'll, I'll be looking to see what, what our,
(26:52):
our vendor partner has to offer as far as future technologies.
You know, we, we obviously want to, to, to hit, we want A1
button, A1 button answer. But for us specifically and
granularly, we're looking for solutions for things total male,
which is our communication. We're looking for improvements
(27:16):
in routing solutions. We say routing solutions how how
a truck gets from point A to point B with all the variations,
all of the fuel stops in betweenthe hours of services included.
There's just a host of things that right now just don't seem
to to run seamlessly. We, you know, bidding, you know,
(27:40):
we, we've got a lot of things that we would like integrated
into the bidding process. And there's, there's a lot of
products out there and there's, you know, some, some bidding
software. A lot of it's still done in
Excel spreadsheets unfortunately, but we'd like to
see that all incorporated in a future TMS where it goes
(28:01):
completely from A-Z, from from as far as routing as far as
that's concerned, even from onboarding to offboarding, that
it's more seamless and and secure.
That's the other, the bigger, the bigger part of future
technology is security, that we can get things locked up and
(28:24):
locked down and not be so worried.
If you ask what keeps me awake at night, it is the one person
that's going to get through our security, despite the hundreds
of thousands that we spend that there's a, you know, that
there's a a little vulnerabilityright there that that we miss
somehow and we want the assistance of our.
(28:45):
Our that's going to be helpful working with somebody like
Trimble that sees this across all their customers and able to
monitor it as opposed to when companies with, you know, all
kind of had their own little Yeah, they, they're a 400
mainframe computer. Well, that was one of the
(29:06):
changes. I think when I first came on
board, that was one of the firstthings that, you know, they,
they were looking at bringing iton Prem and that that was just
that was not future looking for me that that we've moved the
opposite direction. I think as far as monitoring, it
takes the burden off of us locally and it allows us as a
trucking company to focus on what we need to do, which is.
(29:28):
Any final advice from either of you as to what trucking
companies might want to be thinking about when it comes to
their TMS and how to improve it,how to better use it, how to get
a new one? Advice, Adam.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I know we touched on
it a bit, but I, but I think I really think the first step when
(29:52):
you're going to picture new technology is defining success,
right? What, what are you trying to
accomplish? And, and when I accomplish it,
what, what had, what is the result of this accomplishment,
right? So that way you can start to
build the road map even before you met an event.
I think you also have to understand what you already have
(30:12):
and what you don't have. And so you know, really from a
very kind of direct perspective,you have to inventory every
process and every, every, you know, touch, if you will.
I think when you're onboarding and, and especially with a new
TMS, but even with some of the smaller pieces of the puzzle,
you really have to also design roles and create trainings based
(30:33):
on those roles and make sure that people understand what
their role is versus what someone else's role is.
I think as you move to the process, testing thoroughly, you
know, this is a challenge, I think for a lot of organizations
because it's like, you know, youstart to test and if everything
seems right and then you do likea, a, a, an edge case test and,
and it seems to work right. And, and you say, OK, well,
(30:54):
we've done, we've done 4 tests and, and now, you know, it seems
like we're good to go. Well, go live.
Day comes around and all the sudden things that in theory
should have been tested are failing pretty directly and and
instantaneously. So, so Charles, based on what
you've been experiencing these past few years, what advice
would you have? One, you've got a, you've got a
(31:15):
partner with, with a reliable vendor, you have to have that
because you've got to have some confidence and trust in in that
they're going to have the wherewithal to get you to to
your desired goal. Two, you need to have good
processes in place. So I think we the end we used to
say make sure you understand theas is before you can define the
(31:39):
to be so future state, current state and make sure that you've
got a path to get there and dot in procedures that will get you
there successfully. And just make sure that you do.
Adam mentioned you've got a testyou've got to go through and and
test these things out. We've gone through, I think
(31:59):
we've with Adam, I've gone through this is the third one
that we've made some significantchanges, upgrades, etcetera.
And the testing process has justgotten better.
So the tool, if I were to offer to another carrier is make sure
that you're using some type of project planner that you've got
those processes and you can see it.
I'm a visual learner and when I see the, when I see it and I see
(32:23):
a full process, I see, you know,the prelims, the challenges, the
third party integrations, the testing, the smoke testing and
then the, the, the goal live. That's what I can see.
That's what I can work with. Great.
Well, I appreciate. Thank you so much, Charles and
Adam for taking the time to talkto me today about TMS trends and
(32:44):
implementations and advice. Thank.
You, Deborah. Thank you.
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