Custom Solutions for the Transportation, Logistics, & Shipping Industry
THE CLIENT:
A transportation and logistics company providing dedicated fleet services for companies in the Food and Grocer, Retail, Consumer Product, Industrial and Automotive industries. The company provides strategic planning, logistics, and supply chain solutions tailored to meet the needs of clients with highly specialized service requirements.
Their in-depth expertise and extensive fleet networks combined with their continuous focus and investment in engineering and leading-edge technologies enable them to meet challenging routing, scanning, and telematics needs that other carriers would not be able to deliver.
THE BUSINESS NEED:
The company’s logistics engineers use their expertise to model the transportation needs of a client’s business to design strategies and options to improve service and control costs. One of this company’s key competitive advantages is their ability to handle complex routing designs for businesses with time-sensitive delivery needs.
Many transportation companies use scanning devices and applications from 3rd party servicing providers to gather the data used for tracking and routing packages. That means that tracking data is limited to what the servicing provider chooses to capture and make available. This company had been using one of the industry-leading services for that purpose but came to realize that they needed to create their own. The scanning function was core to their business, and they needed to control the data that was captured.
They also wanted to be able to scale their application easier and faster as they added more clients. A custom engineered device and the mobile application would enable them to configure time and acquire geocode data not currently available. By building their own solution, they could enhance their tracking and routing in ways that further boost their competitive advantage and continues to build on their reputation for delivering client-centered solutions at cost-effective rates.
WHAT GENECA DID:
The company assembled a delivery team to build the custom application. They realized that they needed to augment their team with a senior technologist who could provide some specialized expertise and design and write the code for a set of modules.
Having an ‘extra pair of hands’ would enable them to gain some ground on their timeline. The client needed someone who could fit in well with their team and bring the initiative to dive in, understand their framework, and start writing solid code fast. In addition, that same person needed to work directly with the subject matter experts located in another part of the country to gather the requirements.
One of the leaders in this company had worked with Geneca in the past and knew the quality of our work and the breadth of skills our team members possess. They asked us to help them fill the need on their team. Some of the company’s team had concerns about working with someone ‘from an outside firm’ based on prior experiences, but we were confident that we could change their mind. We had not done work at this company before, so this leader was staking their reputation on us.
THE RESULTS:
Our team members delivered what the client’s team needed to enable them to achieve their project goals!
From the first day, the company’s team found that working with a Genecian was very different from their prior experiences and was really positive. Our consistent ability to smoothly join a team and get solid work done within the first couple of days is something our clients and their teams really appreciate.
The initial short-term engagement turned into a longer one and the breadth of work delivered expanded as well. At the end of our work together, the client’s team said they would welcome a Genecian onto their team when needed in the future.
Some of the work our team member delivered included:
- Re-designed how time was configured and stored
- Gave more flexibility to features that used time like routing and scheduling accommodations
- Centralized the ‘time’ processing to allow developers to create time-based features faster, and with consistent results
- Simplified testing
- Filled the specialized knowledge need for help in the area of security and authentication
- Designed and implemented application security modules
- Created custom security approach to fit the application needs
- Improved Azure Cloud Environment design
- Analyzed the services and resources being built for the new application.
- Provided a set of recommendations for how to structure the cloud environment including enhancements to improve security and performance
- Implemented a new approach to gathering requirements and building features
- Short focused remote work sessions between Genecian and business team who were located in a different part of the country
- UI built and shown so the business could see progress and Genecian could ask questions
- Adjusted ‘real code’ as work was delivered
- Positive feedback on approach from the business – they appreciated the visibility, collaboration, seeing progress along the way
- Delivering an end product that matched the business’ vision