Harbourside Services is a North Queensland based group that provides transport, 3PL warehousing and seafood distribution.
Harbourside Transport division operates a regional refrigerated transport service in North Queensland with daily services between Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and west to Charters Towers.
With depots in Townsville and Cairns, Harbourside’s refrigerated transport fleet consists of 13 vehicles. These perform pickups and deliveries as well as a daily run between each centre.
The Opportunity
Harbourside Services implemented Transware – Infoware’s transport component in 2008 to help manage their growing transport division.
The main focus was entry and auto-rating of connotes after delivery and generation of transport invoices, listing both pickup and delivery details.
An issue existed with a combination of waiting for connotes to be returned to be entered and invoiced, as well as management interpretation of some connotes to determine the applicable rate. As the transport division grew, so did the volume of connotes and the delay on queries and administration to produce and email invoices.
The Infoware Solution
In discussion with Peter Hinsch, managing director of Harbourside Services, he felt quite comfortable with the current process of booking jobs into a spreadsheet. Due to the nature of the products being shipped he wished to maintain this control rather than having customers book via the web, as well as wanting to continue discussions each day with customers of their actual freight requirements.
It was agreed that with recording load codes plus some extra data validation in the spreadsheet that all data (both operations and invoicing) could be accurately recorded by the time the job was allocated to a vehicle. Rather than replicate the job booking process into Infoware, we did the reverse. i4 plugins were added to the job booking spreadsheet to upload sender/receiver and load details so this is validated upon entry in the spreadsheet.
At the beginning of each shift, and sometimes more often as urgent jobs are received, the job data is uploaded to Transware. These jobs are then immediately available for drivers on their mobile tablet device.
On completion of delivery, any changes are made directly by the driver on the tablet and the job is ticked as completed. It is then immediately available to be invoiced through Transware.
The Outcome
Web-enabling driver manifests has removed some time and data capture barriers that previously existed. The process changes have resulted in major administration time savings, as well as increased accuracy and improved customer service. Drivers also have less paperwork to manage so there are no jobs missed for billing, further increasing revenue and cash flow and making their job easier at the same time.
Job Data is handled once only at the time of the initial booking.
Jobs are available for drivers on their tablets as is any new jobs during the day.
On completion of each leg of the job, the driver flags it as completed. Jobs can then be invoiced immediately.
“The revised process of getting all data at job booking time has had an immediate flow on to accounts. When each job is completed it is ready to be invoiced saving substantial time and effort for administration staff in reviewing and entering connotes as done previously.
Also the drivers having access to the day’s run on a tablet is far more efficient with communicating; especially as changes occur throughout the day.
At the end of the day, I immediately know of any jobs not completed so these can be transferred to the following day ensuring no freight is missed.
Previously we handled each job 3 times: initially, when booked, then a manifest printed or sent to each driver and then entered into Transware when the connote is returned. Now it is handled once, with substantial savings in admin time to produce invoices and the further advantage of visual controls of any uncompleted work”.
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