Problem Description

A Texas based company in the logistics and supply chain sector needed to optimize some business practices in order to improve communication between the company, carriers and drivers when assigning shipments. This optimization meant modifying and automating pre-existing processes to track shipments, optimize routes, assign loading and unloading tasks, and provide the client with the ability to control and fine-tune tracking at any point in the process.

To achieve this, they requested a solution to be developed, that would meet their goals in an agile and efficient manner, improving its service and communication with both carriers and end customers in a meaningful way, while also shortening delivery times and reducing operational costs.

Solution

To carry out the implementation of the solution, Allata’s team performed an analysis of the workflow, specifically those tasks necessary for assigning dispatches and routes. Once problems in the current flow were identified, we worked on a new and optimized implementation, and on defining a new flow. Then we moved on to designing and developing the applications to provide technical support to it. Both for dispatch operators and for those in charge of making the deliveries. This involved working with both mobile and web technologies, and integrating everything in AWS, to allow for high availability and the ability to meet peak demand.

In addition, a CI/CD solution was set up to automate the processes for creating and deploying applications and environments. This ensured the consistency and integration of the different technologies involved and allowed the development team to focus on the application’s functionality.

The high-level architecture of the solution looks as follows:

Benefits

The solution provided by the Allata allowed the customer to optimize delivery times, costs, and to manage his team more efficiently.

The contribution made involved understanding the current business workflow and designing a new and optimized one, providing support in analysis and design to maximize the benefits of the new application layer. Regarding the CI/CD pipelines, these were used as templates by other internal projects of the client company, due to the practicality and automation they represent in the development processes.