A dispatch portal that replaced eleven spreadsheets

Northfield ran its dispatch operation on a set of shared spreadsheets that had grown for six years. Every branch kept its own copy, reconciliation happened by phone, and nobody could answer where a consignment was without calling someone.

We spent three weeks in the dispatch office before writing any code, mapping how work actually moved rather than how the process documents said it did. The result was a single scheduling model that fit both the depot and long-haul sides of the business.

The portal shipped in four months and now handles the full dispatch day. Spreadsheet reconciliation was removed entirely rather than digitised.