Challenge

SPC Transport has a variety of different customers that they work with. Unfortunately, this means that often they have to deal with how each customer handles communicating important information to them.

In this case, the client's customers were emailing them a list of loads that had been planned and SPC was going to transport. This required SPC to download a list of loads from an email, research all the loads, and if they found any issues they would need to email the customer. SPC Transport has a small staff, so it doesn't have time to waste on tasks that are profitable or productive.

Project Goals

• If possible, don't require SPC's customer to have to change how they send the information
• Eliminate as much human involvement as possible
• Improve speed of the process

Our Solution

The first requirement was to keep the customer from having to change their process, so we used existing software the client was using to pull the source file from emails sent to the client and then download it to a directory.

Next, we created a service to watch that directory and when it sees a new file, a processes starts to get the load information and compare it against what is in SPC's transportation management system. Finally, a email is created showing discrepancies to the client, so they can decide how to address them.

By putting the code in place to solve the second requirement, we also solved the issue of speed. Eliminating the need to manually search for loads in the transport management system greatly sped up the process.

Results

Our solution allowed the client to only involved in reviewing exceptions. All other parts of the process are not automated, requiring no human intervention. We also greatly reduced the opportunity for human error and what took almost an hour, is handled in under five minutes.