The problem with spreadsheets and shipments
Met International is a private organization involved in the import and export of mobility devices worldwide. Each order brings together product data, a customer purchase and an international shipment that moves through several stages.
When that information is tracked by hand and held in spreadsheets, the same questions keep coming back. Where is this order? Has it cleared customs? Which version of the record is right? Staff have to look for the answer, and customers have to ask for it.
The company wanted one place for all of this, and a way for customers to see where their orders stood without having to get in touch.
What we knew before we built
No before-and-after baseline is published for this project, so this page does not offer an improvement figure. What can be stated is what the system set out to do.
- 4
- Business goals: central data, real-time visibility, clearer communication and less manual tracking
- 2
- Audiences to serve: company staff and the customers buying the devices
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- Central system to replace scattered order and shipping records
That set three requirements for the work. Order and shipping data had to live in one structured system. Each logistics stage had to be visible as it changed. And customers had to be able to see their own orders, and only their own orders.
The approach we chose
We built one Django application with two portals, so that staff and customers work from the same records with different views of them:
- Company portal. Manage the product catalog and pricing, add and update purchase orders, and track shipping stages on a dashboard.
- Customer portal. Sign in securely, view past and current orders, follow shipment milestones and download invoices and shipment documents.
A shipment moves through four stages:
- Processing. The company records the purchase order against the customer.
- Dispatch. The order leaves, and its status updates.
- Customs. The shipment's progress through customs is tracked as a stage of its own.
- Delivery. The order reaches the customer, with documents available in the portal.
What we built
Our contribution was the web application: backend, database and interfaces for both portals.
A company portal
Staff manage the mobility device catalog and pricing, add and update customer purchase orders, and track each international shipment through its stages. A dashboard shows logistics status and business metrics.
A customer portal
Customers sign in securely to see past and current purchase orders, follow shipment progress by milestone, and download invoices and shipment documents.
Automated status updates and notifications
Status updates are automated at each logistics stage, and a notification system tells people when an order or shipment changes.
Structured data storage
Records are held in a PostgreSQL database designed for high volumes of transaction records, in a structured form that supports audit needs.
Responsive interfaces
Both portals use responsive interfaces built with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery, for staff and customers alike.
A customer should not have to ask where their order is.
The guardrails around order data
The system holds customers' purchase records and shipping documents, and staff rely on it to answer questions accurately. These decisions were part of the design from the start.
- Role-based authentication. Staff and customers sign in to different portals with different permissions.
- Secure customer login. Customers reach order details and documents through their own login.
- Structured records. Order and shipping data is held in a structured database to support audit needs, rather than in loose spreadsheets.
- Consistent status updates. Automated updates at each stage reduce the risk of records being left out of date.
- A clear view of compliance. Import, export and data rules depend on the business, its markets and how a system is used. We do not describe the system as compliant in itself.
What was reported
The project delivered one system for orders and shipping, with portals for the company and its customers. The effects below are what the project team reported; none of them is a measured result:
- Operations. Bringing order and shipping processes into one system was reported to improve efficiency. No figure is published here.
- Accuracy. Manual tracking errors and communication delays were reported to have reduced. No figure is published here.
- Customers. Clear order and shipment tracking is intended to improve customer satisfaction.
- Future work. The system is a foundation for possible additions such as billing, support tickets and advanced analytics, which are not shipped features.
What stays hard
Four challenges come with this kind of system, and any team building one should plan for them.
- Moving people off spreadsheets. A central system only works if everyone trusts it enough to stop keeping their own records.
- Keeping status accurate. A customer-facing tracker is only as useful as the information behind it, so every stage has to be kept up to date.
- Separating customer data. Staff need to see across all orders, while each customer must see only their own orders and documents.
- High-volume records. Order and shipping history keeps growing, so the database has to stay quick as it does.