The potato haulage firm specialises in transporting potatoes from various farms to their customers efficiently and on time. They faced challenges in managing their daily delivery operations, ensuring real-time communication between drivers and administrators, tracking deliveries, and maintaining a comprehensive audit trail of each journey. The firm sought to enhance its operations with a custom software solution that would address these issues and streamline their potato delivery process.

Challenges:

Manual and Inefficient Operations: The firm's previous operations relied heavily on manual processes, leading to inefficiencies, delays, and the potential for errors.

Real-Time Communication: Lack of real-time communication between drivers and administrators made it difficult to monitor and manage deliveries effectively.

Delivery Tracking: The firm needed a way to track deliveries, including driver progress, arrival times, load information, and weights.

Remote Locations: Many of the potato farms were located in areas with poor or no internet connectivity, posing a challenge for data transmission.

Solution:

Askew Brook, in collaboration with Stockdales, developed a comprehensive software and app solution to address these challenges.

Key Features of the Solution:

Automatic Data Retrieval: Each morning, the system automatically retrieves the day's delivery schedule from the customer system, eliminating the need for manual data entry.

Driver Assignment: Administrators can assign drivers to specific delivery jobs within the platform.

Driver Mobile App: An Android app was developed for drivers that resides in the cab of their vehicles. When a delivery job is assigned, the app notifies the driver, who can accept it in real time.

Real-Time Updates: Drivers can update the system in real time, indicating when they have arrived at the destination, picked up the load (including load details such as weight), and returned to the site. Even in areas with limited connectivity, the app continually attempts to sync with the server.

Shunting Automation: After returning to the site, the system automatically assigns the load to the "shunting" phase.

Shunter Notifications: Shunters receive notifications on their tablets, specifying which load needs to be delivered to the customer and the delivery deadline.

Delivery Confirmation: Upon successful delivery, shunters can enter weight information, marking the job as complete.

Comprehensive Audit Trail: The system maintains a full audit trail of each journey, providing administrators with detailed insights into each delivery.

Benefits:

Efficiency Gains: Stockdales experienced significant efficiency gains by automating their delivery operations, reducing manual labor and minimiaing errors

Real-Time Visibility: Real-time communication and tracking allowed administrators to monitor and manage deliveries as they happened, ensuring on-time performance.

Offline Capability: The system's ability to function in areas with poor or no internet connectivity ensured uninterrupted operations in remote locations.

Data Accuracy: Accurate load and weight information improved data quality and decision-making.

Compliance: The system helped the firm comply with industry standards and regulations by providing a detailed historical archive of each journey.