Why date-based PM fails machines that age by the hour
Most CMMS platforms were designed for facilities — buildings, HVAC systems, production lines that run on predictable schedules. In that world, calendar-based preventive maintenance makes sense: service the air handler every quarter, inspect the boiler every June. Then the same software gets sold to heavy equipment fleets, and the model quietly breaks.
An excavator doesn't wear by the calendar. One machine puts in 60-hour weeks on an earthworks contract while an identical unit sits in the yard between jobs. A date-based system services both on the same day, which means the fleet is always making one of two mistakes:
- Over-servicing idle machines. Oil, filters, and shop labor spent on a unit that ran 40 hours since its last service — plus a day of availability lost for maintenance it didn't need yet.
- Under-servicing hard-working machines. The 250-hour service arrives at 380 hours because the machine was busier than the calendar assumed. Stretched oil and filter intervals don't announce themselves — they surface later as component wear and rebuilds that came earlier than they should have.
The second mistake is the expensive one, and it compounds silently across a fleet. We broke down the math in why PM timing matters more than you think — the gap between "serviced on time" and "serviced close enough" shows up in component life, and component life is where heavy equipment budgets are won or lost.
PM scheduling that runs on hour meters
Tenmil is heavy equipment maintenance software built around the hour meter. Service intervals are set against each machine's meter, and the schedule moves with the work: a machine on double shifts comes due sooner, and a parked machine doesn't come due at all.
That only works if the meters stay honest, so Tenmil keeps readings current from three directions:
- Field entry. Technicians and operators record meter readings from the shop, the yard, or the jobsite — on any device.
- Digital pre-trip inspections (Advanced plan). Every inspection captures a meter reading and updates asset hours in real time, so the daily walk-around doubles as a data feed for the PM schedule.
- Your telematics feed (Advanced plan). Hour meters sync automatically from telematics — no manual entry at all. The machines report their own hours.
On top of the meters, PM compliance reports flag overdue and upcoming services across the fleet, so nothing rides past its interval unnoticed. Fault code triggers take it a step further: incoming codes from your telematics feed can create work orders automatically, with severity levels deciding the response — a critical fault notifies a supervisor and assigns a technician immediately, while low-priority codes get logged against the asset without cluttering the board.
Tenmil also tracks component hours independently of the machine. A rebuilt engine carries its own hour count, so its service schedule and warranty tracking follow the component's real age — not the chassis it happens to sit in.
Construction equipment maintenance software for real jobsites
Construction equipment maintenance software has to survive conditions a facility CMMS never faces: the equipment is scattered across active jobsites, connectivity is unreliable, and the fleet is anything but uniform. Tenmil was built for construction, mining, and earthworks fleets first — not adapted to them later.
- Jobsite mobility. Your crew logs and updates repairs from the shop, the yard, or the jobsite. A work order opened against a dozer on site carries its photos, notes, and parts straight into the asset's history — no paper travelers, no end-of-day data entry.
- Offline by design. Remote sites don't get a signal, so the mobile app works without one. Technicians complete work orders, look up parts, and — on the Advanced plan — run inspections with zero connectivity, and everything syncs automatically when they're back in coverage.
- Mixed fleets, one system. Excavators, dozers, graders, haul trucks, and attachments all live in the same asset registry, with major components — engines, pumps, final drives — tracked separately with their own hours and histories. On the Advanced plan, a live GPS map and project-assigned geozones show where every unit sits across your sites.
Construction, mining, and earthworks fleets are what Tenmil was built for, and the same hour-based model serves agriculture, forestry, equipment rental, and municipal operations. If you're evaluating systems specifically for a construction operation, our guide to CMMS for construction goes deeper on jobsite workflows.
Work orders, parts, and purchase orders in one system
Hour-based PM decides when work happens. The rest of the system decides how cleanly it gets done — and whether the cost actually lands on the machine that caused it.
- Work orders from open to close. Create, assign, and track every job through completion, with labor and parts posting to the asset as the work happens. Technician hours land on time cards with regular and overtime rates, ready to approve and export to payroll — no manual timesheets.
- Asset backlogs. Deferred repairs, upcoming services, and pending parts live in a running backlog on every asset — captured from inspections, operator reports, or PM checklists — and drop into a work order with one click when the machine comes in. Nothing lives on a whiteboard.
- Parts and inventory. Real-time stock with automated reorder points, plus cross-parts mapping that links equivalent parts across manufacturers, tracks superseded part numbers, and compares OEM against aftermarket options before you order.
- Parts warranties. Warranty terms — hours-based or date-based — attach to parts at installation, and the system warns a technician who is about to replace a part the supplier should still be covering.
- Purchase orders and direct invoicing. Procurement runs through approval workflows, and when there's no PO — an emergency road call, a third-party service invoice — direct invoicing allocates the cost straight to the asset, split across multiple machines if needed.
Every one of those flows ends at the same place: the asset record. That's deliberate, because the asset record is where the next number comes from.
Know every machine's true cost per hour
Everything above feeds one number: equipment cost per hour. Because work order labor, parts, purchase orders, and direct invoices all post to the asset — and because hour meters keep the denominator honest — Tenmil computes cost per hour continuously instead of once a year in a spreadsheet.
- Ownership, maintenance, and operating costs tracked separately for every asset, with cost per hour broken down into capital, repair, and operating components.
- Hourly rate trending across the machine's lifetime, so you see costs climbing before the unit becomes the fleet's money pit.
- Rebuild-or-sell decisions backed by the machine's real financial curve instead of gut feel.
That number drives bids, internal charge rates, and replacement timing. If you want to estimate yours right now, our free equipment cost per hour calculator walks through the ownership-plus-operating formula with a worked excavator example — and shows what the tracked version of the number looks like.
It also changes the conversation with ownership. A maintenance department that can show cost per hour by machine and by trend isn't a cost center asking for budget — it's the source of the numbers the whole fleet plan gets built on.
A mobile app built for the field
Heavy equipment maintenance happens wherever the machine stopped — a pit, a lease road, a jobsite an hour past cell coverage. The Tenmil mobile app, included in every plan on iOS and Android, puts the whole workflow in a technician's pocket:
- Work orders in the field. Open, update, and complete jobs from the phone, with photos and notes attached to any item.
- Inspections that feed the system. On the Advanced plan, guided digital pre-trip inspections replace paper forms. Failed items automatically create backlog entries on the asset, and meter readings update hours in real time.
- Parts lookup with barcode scanning. Search stock, scan barcodes, and confirm the right part before the second trip out to the machine.
- Full offline support. Everything works with no connectivity and syncs automatically when the signal comes back.
Field adoption is where most CMMS implementations die — if technicians can't use the system where the work happens, the data never gets in, and every report downstream is fiction. Offline mobile isn't a nice-to-have for heavy equipment fleets; it's the difference between a system of record and a system of guesses. There's more on the app on our mobile CMMS page.
Plugs into your existing systems
Maintenance doesn't run in a vacuum: costs need to reach accounting, and machine data needs to reach maintenance. Tenmil integrates with the ERP and accounting platforms heavy equipment operations already run, including QuickBooks, Sage, Procore, Oracle NetSuite, Oracle JD Edwards, IBM Maximo, Acumatica, and Explorer.
That connection cuts the re-keying out of the monthly close: the cost data captured in Tenmil flows to your accounting platform, and accounting-ready cost reports — by asset, location, or time period — export as PDF, Excel, or CSV, or arrive on a schedule in your controller's inbox.
On the machine side, the Advanced plan connects your telematics feed directly to the maintenance workflow: hour meters keep PM schedules current, GPS positions feed the live fleet map, and fault codes trigger work orders automatically. The data your machines already broadcast finally lands somewhere it can cause a repair instead of just a report.
Spreadsheets vs generic CMMS vs Tenmil
Most heavy equipment fleets evaluating maintenance software are moving off one of two things: a spreadsheet that one person understands, or a generic CMMS that never fit the fleet. Here's how the three options compare on what heavy equipment actually demands:
| Capability | Spreadsheets | Generic CMMS | Tenmil |
|---|---|---|---|
| PM scheduling | Manual reminders, easy to miss | Calendar-based by default | Hour-meter based, moves with the work |
| Meter readings | Typed in when someone remembers | Manual entry | Field entry, plus inspections and telematics sync on Advanced |
| Field use | Paper forms, re-keyed later | Often online-only | Full offline mobile app, auto-sync |
| Parts & purchasing | Separate tabs, no link to assets | Basic stock lists | Reorder points, cross-parts mapping, PO approvals |
| Cost per hour | Rebuilt by hand once a year | Total cost at best | Live capital / repair / operating split per asset |
| Pricing | Free, but costs you hours | Usually behind a quote form | Public: $75–$99 per user / month |
The pattern in the third column isn't feature count — it's fit. Tenmil is heavy equipment maintenance software from the first design decision: hour meters at the core, offline in the field, and every dollar routed to the machine that spent it. And unlike most of the category, the pricing is public — $75 or $99 per user per month, free trial, no credit card — so you can evaluate it without sitting through a discovery call.
If you're weighing maintenance software against the broader operational picture — availability, utilization, where the fleet goes next — our guide to heavy equipment fleet management software maps where a CMMS ends and fleet management begins.
Pricing you don't have to ask for
Most vendors hide their pricing behind a quote form. Tenmil's is public: per-user plans, free trial, no credit card required.
- Free trial on every plan
- Mobile app included
- Data migration help at onboarding
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about heavy equipment maintenance software and how Tenmil handles them.
Heavy equipment maintenance software is a CMMS built around machines that age by the hour meter instead of the calendar — excavators, dozers, loaders, haul trucks. It schedules preventive maintenance from meter readings, manages work orders and parts inventory, and rolls every labor, parts, and invoice cost up to the asset so you know each machine’s true cost per hour. Tenmil adds telematics sync, offline mobile access, and purchase order workflows on top of that core.
A CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) manages maintenance work — work orders, PM schedules, parts, asset histories — for any kind of asset. Fleet maintenance software applies those tools to vehicles and mobile equipment specifically. For heavy equipment the label matters less than the design: you need a system that schedules by engine hours, works offline on remote sites, and tracks cost per hour. Tenmil is both — a CMMS engineered for fleets of yellow iron.
Tenmil publishes its pricing: the Professional plan is $75 per user per month, and the Advanced plan — which adds telematics integration, inspections, greasing routes, and a live GPS fleet map — is $99 per user per month (USD), with custom Enterprise pricing for larger operations. Every plan includes the mobile app, a free trial with no credit card required, and data migration help at onboarding. Most vendors in this category hide pricing behind a quote form.
Yes — that is the core of Tenmil’s PM scheduling. Service intervals trigger from each machine’s hour-meter readings, which stay current three ways: technicians enter readings in the field, and — on the Advanced plan — digital pre-trip inspections update asset hours automatically and your telematics feed can sync meters continuously. PM compliance reports then flag what is overdue and what is coming due, so a machine on double shifts gets serviced sooner and an idle one is not serviced on a guess.
Tenmil connects to your telematics feed to pull hour-meter readings, GPS location, and fault codes into the maintenance workflow. Meter updates keep PM schedules accurate without manual entry, and fault code triggers can create work orders automatically — with severity levels deciding whether a code notifies a supervisor immediately or is simply logged against the asset. Telematics integration is included in the Advanced plan.
Yes. The Tenmil mobile app has full offline support: technicians can complete work orders, look up parts, and — on the Advanced plan — run inspections on remote jobsites with no connectivity, and everything syncs automatically once they are back in coverage. The app is included in every plan on iOS and Android, with barcode scanning for parts and photo attachments for documentation.
Put your PM schedule on the hour meter
A live, one-hour walkthrough of hour-based PM scheduling, work orders, parts, and cost per hour tracking — built around your own fleet scenario.