Situation

The client, a specialized freight forwarder with 85 staff, faced rising operational costs due to high error rates in manual dispatch processes. Dispatchers spent up to 20 minutes per shipment entering data from email PDFs into their TMS, leading to frequent billing disputes. The core pain point was the lack of real-time data visibility between customer portals and internal systems.

Implementation

We deployed a custom middleware solution connecting the client’s TMS with customer e-commerce portals and carrier APIs. The system used OCR and NLP to extract structured data from incoming documents automatically. Integration took 12 weeks, including UAT and staff training. Key components included a validation engine that flags inconsistencies before dispatch confirmation.

Results

Within three months of go-live, manual entry errors dropped from 12% to under 1%. Average processing time per shipment fell from 20 to 12 minutes. Billing disputes decreased by 65%, significantly improving cash flow predictability. Dispatchers shifted focus from data entry to exception handling and customer communication.

Learnings

Success depended on strict data validation rules defined in collaboration with operations teams. Change management was critical; staff resistance decreased when we demonstrated time savings early. Scalability was built into the architecture, allowing the addition of new carrier APIs without major code changes.

Results

  • -90% – Manual Entry Errors
  • -40% – Processing Time per Shipment
  • -65% – Billing Disputes
  • 12 weeks – Implementation Duration