Service is tracked by operations, cost by finance and fleet availability in a third system.
Carrier guide
Manage transport operations without separating service, fleet and profitability
Connect order, planning, driver, vehicle, assignment, incident, evidence, cost and invoicing.
For: Carrier executives, operations, fleet, finance, sales and ITWhat to clarify before discussing a solution
Which work unit explains profitability without losing the reality of routes and disruption?
The answer does not lie in an isolated feature: it is built by connecting rules, actors, data and evidence.A management model by assignment and route, connecting commitment, resources, evidence and contribution.
Four decisions to make before configuration
These decisions make the scope testable and prevent structural choices from being discovered during the project.
Define the profitability work unit
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Connect vehicle availability and planning
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Structure incident reasons and waiting time
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Close assignment, evidence and invoicing in the same flow
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
A readable end-to-end flow
Scope is not a list of modules. It is a chain of events, ownership and decisions.
1Order and commitment
2Resource planning
3Driver assignment
4Fleet and availability
5Evidence, cost and invoicing
In the first scoping
- One representative flow and its useful variants
- Authoritative events and minimum data
- Roles, decisions and escalation times
- Acceptance criteria and baseline measurement
To sequence in waves
- Additional sites, activities or populations
- Rare variants that do not condition the pilot
- Automations whose rule is not yet stable
- Advanced dashboards after source reliability
To decide explicitly
- Define the profitability work unit
- Connect vehicle availability and planning
- Structure incident reasons and waiting time
- Close assignment, evidence and invoicing in the same flow
From direction to measured improvement
- 1Navigator
- 2Personalised review
- 3Scoping workshop
- 4Wave-based deployment
- 5KPI measurement
Each stage produces a decision or evidence reusable in the next. Deployment remains business-led and verifiable.
Measure to decide, not to fill a dashboard
Every KPI needs a definition, a source, a cadence and an associated decision.
KPIFormulaSourceDecision
Transport cost per unitConsolidated transport costs ÷ units deliveredServices, kilometres, charges and invoicingArbitrate transport plan, utilisation and providers
Empty kilometresUnladen kilometres ÷ total kilometresRoutes, geolocation and assignmentsRedesign routes and trip chaining
Complete delivery evidenceDeliveries with usable evidence ÷ closed deliveriesPOD, statuses, reservations and documentsReduce disputes and accelerate closure
Contribution marginRevenue − directly attributable costsSales, purchasing, operations and chargesArbitrate portfolio, service and terms
06 · Business scenario
A route explained from plan to margin
- Situation
- A carrier maintains service but struggles to explain contribution variance across comparable routes.
- Approach
- The pilot connects assignments, kilometres, time, incidents, evidence and billable items to the same work unit.
- Target outcome
- Operations can act on the operating causes of profitability.
Useful answers before the first discussion
01Where should we start in practical terms?
Choose a representative scope spanning “Order and commitment” and “Resource planning”, then document one normal case and one frequent exception. The first flow should be important enough to matter but contained enough to observe end to end.
02Do all existing systems need replacing?
No. Scoping starts with decisions, authoritative events and ownership. It then determines what should be retained, integrated, replaced or simply better governed, wave by wave.
03What data should be prepared before a workshop?
Prepare a few real cases, the volumes shaping the operation, the main variance reasons and the sources used to measure Transport cost per unit. The quality of examples matters more than the quantity of documents.
04How should the right pilot scope be chosen?
Choose a scope with an available owner, accessible data, a meaningful exception and a measurable outcome. Avoid both an overly simple case that proves nothing and an overly broad scope that dilutes learning.
05How can scope changes during the project be limited?
Make assumptions, interfaces, variants, exceptions and acceptance criteria explicit. Every new request can then be classified: essential to the wave, suitable for a later wave, or outside the objective. Discussion focuses on impact rather than intuition.
Next step
Turn this guide into a personalised review
Complete Navigator to position your context, then use the review as the starting point for a scoping workshop.
- 1Navigator
- 2Personalised review
- 3Scoping workshop
- 4Wave-based deployment
- 5KPI measurement
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