Tenna Customer Story
MSCI Manages Parts for 1,200+ Assets in One System
Mountain States Constructors, Inc. (MSCI) is one of New Mexico’s leading heavy civil highway contractors, serving the entire state with a mixed fleet of small equipment, heavy iron, trucks, trailers, and specialty assets.
With a fleet of over 1,100 assets, MSCI’s manual processes had them lost in the weeds of parts inventory management. With Tenna, MSCI built a system for parts and repairs that the shop and field use to stay efficient while keeping their entire mixed fleet up and running. They also use Tenna’s inspections, safety cameras, and driver scorecards to improve their safety performance and maintain a culture of excellence, alongside tracking their assets across operations and protecting them from theft.
At a Glance Results
Saving time with faster parts retrieval and recovery
with bin and row locations tied to each digital part asset, and increased and more timely parts returns to the warehouse
Cost control and Savings on Parts Procurement
with stock inventory visibility from the field and improved recovery of unused parts
Smarter Equipment Replacement Decisions
$120,000 brand new stolen asset recovered
Stronger claims defense
Improved driver scores
"My favorite part about Tenna is that all of the components are in one system. It's nice to be able to jump from the maintenance side to safety and compliance, to inspections, to parts… And really have it all easily accessible."
Dayton Cox,
Shop Manager
The Challenges Before Tenna
“It’s Easy to Get Lost in the Weeds”
“When you get to the size of the company we are, it’s easy to kind of get lost in the weeds with some of that stuff,” said Dayton Cox, Shop Manager at MSCI.
Across over 1,100 assets, that meant more than just tracking inventory. Before Tenna, time was lost researching and locating parts. “I had guys that would spend 15 minutes looking for a part in the back because we knew we had it, we just didn’t know where.”
MSCI had inventory, it just wasn’t organized.
“We track all kinds of parts, filters, oils. We do a bunch of our wear parts, cutting edges, teeth, tires, of course brakes. Before we had Tenna, we did have an inventory, we just didn’t have it very well inventoried.”
Unused inventory wasn’t getting returned in time. Equipment repair history was hard to follow, and the shop needed a clearer picture of true R&M costs to make equipment replacement decisions.
“That was one of the big issues that I had when it came to parts. We couldn’t get the stuff that wasn’t used back in a timely manner.”
Before Tenna, MSCI’s parts, repair and maintenance information was spread across too many separate processes and systems.
“We were looking for a platform that would help us kind of contain everything in one, where we can do all of our equipment profiles, all of our repair orders, all of our parts management and repair management.”
The need that came out of all of it was simple:
“We needed to centralize everything.”
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
“Figure Out Where We’re At and How We Can Improve [Safety]”
Jaime Castillo, Safety Director at MSCI, was looking for greater visibility into driver behavior, as well as ways to encourage and track improvement over time.
“Our company is a billboard, right? We’re traveling all over the state of New Mexico. People see us, and so we definitely want to make sure that we’re driving safely.”
The challenge was knowing what was actually happening across the fleet. Claims were raised repeatedly against their drivers on the road and inside active work zones.
“People will call and say, ‘Hey, your driver here cut me off,’ or, ‘This driver was speeding.’”
A big focus for Jaime was implementing dash cams inside active work zones, as protection for potential preventable incidences.
Without safety camera recordings or documented oversight of performance across a large group of drivers, it was difficult to see where risky behaviors were showing up, where safety needed attention, and to provide evidence against false claims in and outside of work zones.
“You might have someone that gets in an accident in a construction zone and they might come out and say, ‘Hey, you’re missing barrels, you’re missing warning signs.’ Those types of claims were difficult to verify before implementing Tenna’s cameras.”
— Jaime Castillo, Safety Director
The Solutions with Tenna
Parts and Repair Data Organized Around Each Asset
Alongside tracking their assets on jobsites and between operations, MSCI implemented Tenna’s parts inventory management solution as part of their maintenance program, allowing them to inventory all of their existing parts assets and centralize all key parts data into a single digital catalog.
“I was able to reach out to our vendors to get our purchase history for the last five years.”
“We were able to add those to an equipment profile with the parts listing that [Tenna has] under each unit so we can go back and reference it.”
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
Live Inventory Between the Shop and the Field
MSCI uses Tenna to monitor critical inventory, track what is coming in and going out, and connect parts directly to work orders.
“It’s nice to be able to monitor those quantities that we have here live in the shop and be able to apply it to the work order.”
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
Bin and row locations at the part level in Tenna give the shop a physical location for inventory, while field teams can see what is already available in house before calling a vendor.
“The parts system has helped the team out in the field more because they can see what we have in stock.”
MSCI also uses Tenna to track an active consignment arrangement it has with one of its vendors. Vendor-owned stock stays visible without touching any of MSCI’s own inventory.
“I was a firm believer on not doing a consignment because I’ve not had good luck with them in the past. But this has really given us that transparency where it’s being managed and helped being managed by [Tenna’s] parts system.”
A More Structured Safety Program
Tenna’s driver scorecards give Castillo a history of performance to work from, while MSCI uses quarterly safety meetings to recognize A-rated drivers.
“You can see from the scorecard, it’s got the graph on there that shows us our history.”
Inspections have also moved from paper to digital, making them more efficient, and easier to complete in the field.
One Connected System Across Operations
Parts, maintenance, inspections, safety, compliance, and tracking all run through the same platform.
“My favorite part about Tenna is that all of the components are in one system.”
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
The Results with Tenna
More Parts Returned, Faster
MSCI uses Tenna's parts inventory management solutions to tie every part back to the work order it was ordered against and quickly validate what parts need to be returned.
“We couldn’t get the stuff that wasn’t used back in a timely manner. Now it’s easier to follow up. Anybody can look up, ‘Hey, we had this repair on this asset. These parts weren’t used. Where are they at?’”
"We have seen a greater increase in returns in that area. We’re saving the most money that way."
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
Less Time Finding and Researching Parts
With parts listings built into each equipment profile in Tenna, MSCI's shop no longer looks up parts numbers by hand. Equipment profiles give the shop a faster digital reference for the right parts on each asset.
“That’s where we’re seeing the benefit. [Tenna] is saving us time on the back end.”
And once the right part is identified, bin and row locations in Tenna make it faster to find in the warehouse. No more 15 minute sessions trying to track down parts.
"[Tenna] providing bin locations and row locations and all of that has definitely streamlined the process of finding parts in our parts warehouse."
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
Better cost Control Through Parts Visibility
With Tenna work orders alongside parts requests, inventory, and stock-level monitoring MSCI has a live view of what's coming in, what's going out, and where it's assigned.
“[Tenna] helps us manage cost control by giving us that [parts] transparency. We know where everything’s going. We know where it’s being assigned to. We know what’s coming in, what’s going out, based off of our orders, based off of what we see the needs of the field are."
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
Repair History That Can Recover Costs
Work order documentation in Tenna gives MSCI a repair history it didn't have before, letting the team catch warranty coverage before it's missed.
“One of the major pain points that Tenna has helped us resolve was documentation. Repair documentation has gotten significantly better," says Cox.
"We're getting the results of being able to see, 'we just did this repair three months ago.' Maybe we have a deeper issue, or maybe this part has failed and it's under warranty. So we're able to capitalize on some of those expenses or do a deeper dive on the repair."
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
True Repair Costs, Clear Replacement Decisions
Cost codes in Tenna let Dayton and his team separate what’s actually a repair from what are routine maintenance and supplies.
"When we do look at our R&M costs, we can separate actual true repair cost versus maintenance and supplies, and that definitely benefits us when it comes to equipment replacement."
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
More Drivers Bought Into Safer Driving
Tenna's Driver Scorecards gave MSCI's safety team a way to recognize good driving, not just flag bad driving, and ultimately build much better driver scores over time.
“We have these quarterly safety meetings where we recognize drivers for driving safely. All the drivers that are in the A category, they get a gift card, we bring them up on stage and just kind of reward them that way. And so that helps other employees want to participate in that."
— Jaime Castillo, Safety Director
Stronger Record For Claims and Incidents
Tenna's AI Dash Cams give MSCI footage from inside active work zones, not just standard road-facing coverage. This helps build a trail of proof for defending complaints and claims.
“Having the traffic control trucks record some of that in that area helps me to have a stronger case to defend that. The [Tenna] camera system has really helped.”
And outside of work zones:
"To be able to look into that helps them know if the driver was even there, they might get us confused with another contractor."
“People will say, ‘I was going 75 and they passed me at 95.’ I’m able to go back and look and say the driver wasn’t really driving 90 miles an hour. And so that's been really helpful.”
— Jaime Castillo, Safety Director
Measurable Progress Toward a Safer Fleet
Tenna's safety and compliance reporting gives MSCI a baseline to measure against, and a way to track improvements and risk over time.
“Having Tenna has definitely helped us a lot in our driving behavior... Reducing accidents and speeding tickets."
"Tenna's implementation just really helped us to figure out where we're at and how we can improve. Our scores recently have been really good... I was actually surprised at how many drivers we got in the A’s [now]."
"In the beginning, we had a very small amount of people that had A’s.”
“Having that information is really helpful to see where we started and where we’re at, and is it making an impact and a difference.”
"One of our biggest risks that we have as a road construction company is the vehicles we have on the road. Tenna helps us reduce that risk, reducing the speeding, reducing the heartbreaking maintenance on our equipment and trucks."
— Jaime Castillo, Safety Director
Catching Safety Issues in Real Time
Jaime relies on Tenna’s mobile app to catch issues in real time, wherever he is. That means being able to get to the information he needs without sitting behind a computer all day.
“It just makes it easy for me to look when I need to look.”
"I like the simplicity that it gives me with the alerts that I need."
— Jaime Castillo, Safety Director
"We definitely value the relationship we have with Tenna."
“My experience with Tenna customer success is they have been able to resolve, I would say, the majority of my issues.”
“I think it’s pretty integral. We definitely value the relationship we have with Tenna. Tenna has helped us through different obstacles, you know, with equipment possibly going missing, getting actual true R&M costs, even just the data, keeping everything in one place.”
— Dayton Cox, Shop Manager
Jaime Castillo on his experience with Tenna:
“[Old provider] was just, like, horrible back two years ago. You know, you would call somebody, you wouldn’t get ahold of anyone at all. It would take weeks or months to get ahold of someone.”
— Jaime Castillo, Safety Director
Explore the Tenna Products that Helped MSCI
Parts Inventory Management
Work Orders
TennaCANbus
Trackers
TennaBLE
Beacons
TennaFLEET
Trackers
Safety &
Compliance
AI Dash
Cams
Driver
Scorecards
Custom Inspections
Mobile App
See How Other Contractors are Building Better Systems with Tenna
Get a Personalized Demo
Book a Demo