Retiring the spreadsheet that ran the dispatch desk
- Client
- Vantage Freight
- Sector
- Logistics
- Year
- 2025
- Services
- Automation, Data Engineering
6,200
staff hours returned per year
0.2%
exception rate, from 4.8%
5wk
to first process in production
Challenge
A dispatch coordinator kept the real schedule in a spreadsheet because no system held the whole picture. Every evening someone reconciled it against the transport management system and the finance ledger by hand. Errors surfaced as invoices customers disputed weeks later.
Approach
In order, including the steps that changed the plan.
- 01
Measure the manual layer
Two weeks of shadowing produced a process map with hours and error rates attached to each step. Three of the eleven steps accounted for 71% of the time, which set the build order without a debate.
- 02
Durable workflows, not scripts
Each process became a versioned, resumable workflow with typed inputs and automatic retries. A carrier API outage now pauses and resumes rather than requiring the evening to be redone.
- 03
Resolve conflicts by rule
When the transport system and the ledger disagree, a written precedence rule decides and logs the decision. Agreeing those rules up front took four meetings and prevented an entire category of dispute.
Outcome
The spreadsheet is gone. Exceptions are visible on a control surface the operations team owns, and the disputed-invoice rate fell by an order of magnitude in the first quarter after launch.
Built with
- Temporal
- NetSuite
- Postgres
- Retool
- Next.js
Tell us what you are building.
A system you want built, a model that has to survive real traffic, or a process that should have been automated a year ago. The first conversation costs nothing, and occasionally ends with us telling you not to build it.
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A 30-minute call, no deck
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A written view within a week
Including the case for not proceeding.