Kohactive was approached by a top Transportation Management Company to help create a mobile application that will help power its fleet of over 5,000 drivers.
The Company manages transportation services for thousands of customers, from large retailers with thousands of locations to carriers of various sizes. To improve driver productivity and provide real-time insights into their workflow, the Company sought to build a mobile application for its drivers.
The Company utilized a legacy, third-party solution for its driver logistics that couldn't provide the power and flexibility they required. The current solution was a physical device that was attached to the cabin of the truck.
The Company provides immense value to its customer through multi-modal capabilities. Containers are transported using trains, ships, and trucks to optimize speed and costs for customers. With a fleet of 5,000 drivers carrying thousands of containers per week, there were numerous issues and a lack of transparency into the current workflow.
The primary challenge of the project was to build a powerful tool that improves the productivity of the drivers. Every minute wasted looking for their next move, finding a reference number, and filing paperwork cost the Company money and impacting their ability to scale. How could we improve productivity by creating an app that enabled drivers to focus on driving rather than waiting around?
There is quite a bit involved in the various types of moves a driver makes throughout the day. The new app will need to provide insight into each pickup and dropoff, including all of the activities that they'll need to complete during each stop. The app will need to provide the correct reference numbers and contact information to ensure the drivers aren't delayed with missing or incorrect information.
This project is one of the most significant investments made in modernizing their technology. Working with its in-house engineering team, we set out to create a mobile app that would provide immense, long-lasting value.
We help logistics and transportation organizations automate workflows, reduce costs, and improve productivity through custom software.
Learn More Working with their in-house team, we kicked off the project with a few workshops. The Kohactive team was responsible for the design and development of the mobile app while their internal team would build out the majority of the microservices. We worked together as one team in a dual-track agile process.
Building a productivity tool that satisfied business requirements and delivered on a user pain points requires an immersive research phase. We started the project by interviewing key stakeholders on the business side as well as drivers who would be using the app. The interviews provided much insight into how we could start to solve the problems through design.
One of the most critical parts of the driver interviews was learning about their vernacular. A driver's responsibility relies on the "moves" they make throughout their workflow. These moves had very distinct naming conventions like "drop and hook," "live load", and "bobtail". Understanding this helped influence our design decisions and create an experience that spoke their language.
To better understand the product and align all stakeholders, we began a rapid prototyping phase to visualize a solution quickly. The initial mockups help guide the discussion and answer critical questions that arose throughout discovery. After a few design iterations, we sat down with the drivers and ran user interviews to validate the assumptions we had made. We traveled to numerous terminals, interviewing drivers, and getting feedback after each round. Once we were confident in our product and received approval from the stakeholders, we began to build out the core interface for the new mobile app.
Throughout the agile development process, our team continued to interview drivers and get feedback on an ongoing basis. A pilot of the mobile app in a single terminal helped discover more opportunities for improvement as well.
We're currently still working with the Company to organize feedback and improve the product with new features and functionality.
The new mobile app has had an immense impact on the Company already. The drivers love the new app and have quickly become familiar with the features and functionality.
The new mobile app has quite a few features that enable the drivers to be more productive, including:
At the center of the mobile app is a trips management system that provides an overview of current, upcoming, and completed trips. Their backlog of stops is created and assigned by another department and automatically enqueued for them. Drivers can get insight into the next few days at the touch of their finger, which helps them plan their day and improve their productivity.
Dropoffs and pickups aren't all that's involved in their process. When a driver makes a stop, there is a variety of activities that need to be completed. From internal activities like marking something as completed to regulated activities like pre-trip inspections, the new mobile app offers an intuitive and guided system for improving their workflow.
Many of the activities required have been automated for the drivers, including checking them in and out of a stop based on geofencing.
Each customer, rail, or stop has it's own headaches for a driver, especially when they can't find what they need. Having the right information in the right spot helps improve their productivity and reduce stress. The new app provides drivers with the correct reference numbers and contact information to help streamline through each stop.
The new app allows drivers to scan and upload paperwork for each pickup and delivery. This helps to reduce errors and streamline their process as well.
The drivers can get insight into their work directly through the app. Since they get paid based on work and productivity, they can easily access their reports and view their paystubs. While the new app provides business value, it also helps drivers to bring home more income.
Overall, the new app has been incredibly successful in improving driver productivity and meeting business requirements. Working with the Company, we'll continue to work on our backlog of features to continue to provide long-lasting value to both the business and the drivers.
Would you like to learn more about how we can help your organization build the future of transportation? Learn More.