Mapping before touching anything
We documented the real processes, the email templates, the documents exchanged with brokers, and every task done by hand.
That mapping is what decides which parts are worth automating and which are not.
Three hours a day across spreadsheets, WhatsApp and hand-written emails
CHB Transport ran its operation across spreadsheets, phone calls and manually written emails. Reporting a delivery required opening the GPS platform, copying the shipment link and inserting it into an email. That flow is now automated.
- Client
- CHB Transport
- Industry
- Freight transport
- Where
- California, United States
- Size
- Around 10 employees
- Duration
- 5 months, in 5 phases
- Since
- August 2024, in production
The starting point
- Load records and invoices lived in spreadsheets with no central control: finding one specific figure took time.
- Communication with brokers and customers ran on WhatsApp, phone calls and emails written one at a time, with no templates.
- Reporting a delivery meant opening the GPS platform, copying the shipment link and pasting it into an email.
- Email went out from personal Gmail accounts, which cost credibility with new customers and brokers.
- There was no website: the business could not be found by anyone who did not already know it.
- Around three hours a day went into data entry, planning and email.
What we built
ERP on Odoo
Load records, customer management and fleet management, using standard Odoo modules adapted to the vocabulary and flow of freight transport.
Motive integration
The GPS tracking platform feeds the ERP: vehicle location and completed deliveries are recorded against each load, with no manual intervention.
Domain and business email
Accounts on the company’s own domain, plus invoice and payment-request templates that go out from the system instead of being written one by one.
Website
A public presence so new customers and brokers can find the company and check who they are hiring.
Decisions that shaped the outcome
- A fully cloud-based architecture, a requirement for an operation whose vehicles are on the road and whose data must be reachable from any location.
- Standard Odoo modules before custom development. We adapted what the product already solves and kept custom work for what it did not cover. That is what keeps the system upgradable.
- The Motive integration concentrated most of the project risk, for reasons unrelated to the technical work: obtaining access to their documentation took longer than building the integration itself.
What changed
- The three daily hours of data entry, planning and email came down considerably. The client estimates roughly by half.
- Fewer emails and calls asking where a shipment is: the information is available without having to ask for it.
- Decisions happen sooner, because the operational data sits in one place and is current.
- The company now has its own website and email on its own domain — the first thing a new broker checks.
What they say
I used to spend more than 2 hours going through emails, digging for information in files and creating invoices by hand. Now I have everything in one system.
Our digital presence improved. Customers see our services on the website, they get in touch, and we have built relationships with new customers and brokers.
Built with
- Odoo
- Motive
- Python
- PostgreSQL
- Nginx
Have a project in mind?
Tell us what you need and we will tell you honestly whether we can help, how long it would take and what it would cost. No strings attached.