5 Signs It’s Time to Upgrade Your Material Delivery System

Managing material delivery shouldn’t feel like a constant fire drill. But if your team is still using paper tickets, phone calls, and spreadsheets to track hauls, you're probably dealing with more delays, mistakes, and back-and-forth than you should be.

These problems don’t just slow things down. They eat into profits, frustrate crews, and make it harder to keep jobs on schedule. The solution isn’t working harder. It’s working smarter with the right tools.

This article breaks down five signs your delivery system is outdated. If any of them sound familiar, it might be time to make a change. We’ll also show how a platform like Trux can help you run a more efficient and reliable operation.

Click a topic below to jump to the relevant section:

1. You’re Drowning in Paperwork

2. Your Dispatch Team Plays Phone Tag All Day

3. You Can’t Track Trucks in Real Time

4. You're Overpaying for Hauls (and Don’t Even Know It)

5. Your Jobs Are Slowing Down at the Plant

Conclusion

1. You’re Drowning in Paperwork

Paper tickets might seem simple, but they cause more problems than they solve. When drivers turn in hand-written slips at the end of the day—or worse, at the end of the week—someone has to sort through every sheet, read messy handwriting, enter the info manually, and hope nothing got lost or miscounted.

If a load number is wrong or a ticket goes missing, it creates a chain reaction. You spend extra time tracking down drivers, confirming deliveries, and making corrections before you can bill the customer. Meanwhile, payments are delayed and your cash flow takes a hit.

Trux's E-Ticketing solution replaces all of that with a digital system. Drivers use their phones to punch in, track their hauls, and submit digital load slips automatically. The data flows straight into your dispatch and billing systems in real time. You get clean, accurate records—without sorting through paperwork or playing phone tag to fill in the blanks.

2. Your Dispatch Team Plays Phone Tag All Day

Coordinating hauls through phone calls and text messages might have worked when you had a smaller operation. But as your jobs grow, that method breaks down fast.

Dispatchers spend hours calling haulers, updating schedules, confirming shift changes, and dealing with last-minute job site issues. If a load gets delayed or a hauler doesn't show, the scramble begins—more calls, more confusion, and more wasted time.

Trux's Dispatching and Tracking Haulers makes it easy to assign and update jobs in a few clicks. Haulers get the latest info on their phones, and everyone sees the same schedule in real time. No more repeating the same message over and over. No more wasted hours coordinating changes that should take seconds.

3. You Can’t Track Trucks in Real Time

Not knowing where your trucks are—or when they’ll arrive—is a major problem. It leads to job site delays, idle crews, and frustrated customers asking questions you can’t answer.

When you’re relying on drivers to check in by phone or text, you’re left guessing. If someone’s running late or stuck in traffic, you often don’t know until it's already caused a delay.

Trux's Advanced Delivery Tracker gives you live GPS tracking without any hardware. Drivers use their phones, and you can see every truck’s location and progress in real time. If a job is falling behind, you’ll know early and can adjust fast. If a hauler finishes early, you can redeploy them right away.

Visibility helps you stay ahead of issues instead of reacting after the fact.

4. You're Overpaying for Hauls (and Don’t Even Know It)

Without accurate tracking, it’s hard to know if you’re getting what you paid for. Are haulers starting on time? Are they finishing the loads they were assigned? If you’re not sure, you’re probably overpaying somewhere.

Trux's Geofencing capabilities and digital shift tracking give you exact timestamps for when trucks arrive and leave. That means you’re only paying for actual work—no more rounding up or guessing.

It also helps prevent disputes. If a hauler questions a payment, or your back office spots an error, you’ve got the data to back it up.

5. Your Jobs Are Slowing Down at the Plant

When trucks are backed up waiting to load, it slows down your entire operation. Every minute a truck sits idle is a minute you're not moving material—and not making money.

These slowdowns often go unnoticed until they start impacting daily output. Whether it’s poor load planning, late arrivals, or unexpected bottlenecks, the result is the same: fewer deliveries and more frustration.

Trux's Plant Optimization tools give you a live view of plant operations. You can see which trucks are inbound, how long they’ve been waiting, and how many loads are still scheduled. Dispatchers can adjust on the fly, and plant managers can prep loads before trucks arrive.

The result? Shorter turnaround times and more material moved every day.

Conclusion

If any of these signs sound familiar—constant paperwork, nonstop phone calls, blind spots in tracking, billing issues, or slowdowns at the plant—your delivery system isn’t working as well as it should.

These aren’t just small headaches. They cost time, money, and trust across every part of your operation.

Trux is built to solve them. It gives you the tools to dispatch faster, track smarter, and manage haulers with less hassle. No hardware. No complex setup. Just a better way to run your hauling operation.

Ready to see how it works? Schedule a demo or get in touch with our team today.