Bertschi

N47 built the back-office web application TRUCKPLANNING for the dispatcher department of Bertschi AG. The application enables the team to visually plan the trucks, trailers, drivers, legs, and actions of their large fleet. The implemented live representation of all schedules is crucial to managing transport and ensuring happy customers successfully.

Concept
UX/UI Design
Architecture
Backend Development
Frontend Development
Quality Assurance

“For around 100 of our employees across Europe, TRUCKPLANNING is an integral part of their daily work and represents an essential milestone in our digitalization strategy. Since its introduction, we have seen an increase in efficiency of around 30% compared to our old process. This is reflected in the reduction of required working time due to the elimination of manual work steps.
In addition, we can provide our customers with more timely and accurate information about their orders.

As a result of the collaboration with N47, we were able to conceptualize, develop and productively implement TRUCKPLANNING in a comparatively short time period. Our employees highly appreciated the resulting short transformation phase. Another great advantage of the cooperation with N47 is the continuous development of TRUCKPLANNING. This has been extremely productive, with N47 proactively and independently contributing suggestions for improvement. With N47 as a partner, TRUCKPLANNING became a success story at Bertschi AG”

Nebojsa BuovskiProject Manager Digitalization

100

Frequent users

1400

Managed trucks

35000

Leg updates per day

Problems to be solved

  • We digitalized and optimized the planning process of trucking legs.
  • We digitalized and optimized in-fleeting / de-fleeting and affiliation processes of transport-involved entities (trucks, trailers, drivers, subcontractors).
  • We established real-time shipment status monitoring and direct dispatcher–driver communication.
  • The solution supports multiple boards visualizing parts of the fleet to optimize the overview.
  • Transparency about the current location of trailers is achieved.
  • Updates are spread in real-time to all users to provide an up-to-date representation of the fleet and legs.

Optimized business processes

  • Prioritizing, ordering, and planning the shipment order segments (legs).
  • Scheduling fleet-related events such as services, vacations, and decommissioning.
  • Highlighting of occupied entities.
  • Dispatcher – Driver real-time communication via chat messages

Further achievements

After implementing an MVP, more and more features have been added over time as requested by the users of the application:

  • A client-side search feature, which covers all the items on the board and helps much in finding legs.
  • Additional informational details are displayed, like full addresses, loading/unloading points, temperature requirements, etc.
  • Copy and paste functionality of actions & reminders, simplifying the maintenance.
  • Visualization of multiple drivers with split shifts on the same truck.
  • Grouping of free trailers by current location.
  • Integration of existing chat solutions to streamline communication with the drivers.
  • Different views (with or without weekends, full day or main working hours).

Tech Stack

Backend

  • Java Spring Boot microservices
  • JOOQ
  • Flyway
  • Open Feign
  • Gradle

Frontend

  • Vue2 with composition API

  • Ant Design components library

  • Tailwind CSS

  • Typescript

  • Flexsearch

Cloud

  • Cloud-native on GCP (Google Cloud)

  • Google Kubernetes Cluster

  • PostgreSQL

Other

  • WebSockets with stomp and SockJS

  • Redis, Artemis

About the customer

Bertschi AG is a Swiss transport company specializing in logistics and transportation services, mainly for the chemical industry. The company was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Durrenasch, Switzerland. Bertschi AG is a member of the European Chemical Transport Association.

Bertschi AG specializes in logistics services for liquids and solid bulk products for the chemical industry. As a pioneer in transalpine intermodal transport, Bertschi AG also takes a leadership role in sustainability in freight transportation. This is underlined by the company’s position as the market leader in intermodal chemical transport on rail and water in Europe, eliminating thousands of road transport kilometers each year.

Building upon its dense European network of terminals and subsidiaries, the company has expanded geographically to become a leading global provider of tank container transportation for the chemical industry. They offer freight management services and various added-value services built on their proper warehousing infrastructure. They remain true to the philosophy of their founders. Safety and protection of the environment are top priorities – without any trade-offs!

Do you want to learn more?

Stefan works at the project as Tech Lead and Backend Engineer, so he knows everything about it. He’d love to tell you more!

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