Case Study — Field Operations, Analysis to Launch

Shiploose Material requisitions, off the spreadsheet

A modular construction manufacturer in Québec moved every material request between its sites and its warehouse through one shared spreadsheet. We designed and built the application that replaced it, from the first workshop to go-live.

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A delivery record in Shiploose, showing the progression from preparation to delivered, the planned and actual dates, the requisitions on the load, a notice that one line arrived short, the signed delivery note, both signatures, and the item table with quantities requested, prepared and received.

Sector: Modular construction
Status: Live
Engagement: Analysis, then build
Users: Sites, warehouse, office

The problem

One spreadsheet held the whole supply chain

A site needed material, so someone exported a list of parts, pasted it into a shared workbook, typed a description from memory and passed the file along. Every step was a place to lose information, and the warehouse was the last to find out.

Manual exports
Copy-paste between sheets
Descriptions written by hand
Missing part codes
Shortfalls nobody owned

The impact

Every error in that file was absorbed by the warehouse, and the warehouse found out last.

So we designed around what the people loading the vehicle have to know, rather than around what the office wants to report. A request they cannot trust is a vehicle that leaves with the wrong material on it.

What changed

Before and after

Each row is something we watched go wrong in the spreadsheet, and what the application does with it instead.

In the spreadsheet

In Shiploose

Descriptions were typed freehand, so one part travelled under several names.

Lines come from one approved item list, with the code attached.

A part delivery closed the row anyway, and the remainder lived in someone's memory.

Every line carries what was asked for and what arrived. The shortfall stays open.

Approval was an email, or nothing, and nobody could say later who had agreed.

Each approval is an action in the app, and the trail stays on the record.

Adding one line to a live request meant a new version of the file.

Changes attach to the requisition that is already moving.

Crews phoned the office for a status, because the file sat on a desk there.

The state, the vehicle and the date are on the requisition, with its history.

Workflow

Requisition and delivery statuses

Six statuses on a requisition and four on the delivery that carries it. Each one is timestamped and attributed, so the question of where an order has reached is answered on screen. The interface is in French, because that is what the crews read.

Waiting

En attente

Raised on site, in the approval queue.

Confirmed

Confirmée

Approved by the project manager.

Being picked

Préparation

The warehouse is pulling the items.

Ready

Prêt

Picked, waiting for a vehicle.

On the road

En transit

On a delivery, with the vehicle named.

Delivered

Livrée

Signed for on site, quantity by quantity.

Delivered, incomplete

When less arrives than was asked for, the delivery closes as incomplete rather than as done, and somebody has to decide what happens to the difference.

Shortfalls and returns

Both are records in their own right, not a note in a comment field. An outstanding quantity stays outstanding until it ships.

What we built

Inside the application

Every material request is one record, worked on by the site that raised it, the manager who approved it, the warehouse that picked it and the driver who delivered it.

Dashboard and approval queue

The dashboard opens on four counters: requests waiting for approval, requests being picked, deliveries completed this month, and requests that are past their required date. The approval queue sits beside them so a manager can clear it without changing screens.

The Shiploose dashboard: counters for requisitions awaiting approval, in preparation, delivered this month and past their date, a band showing active requisitions by state, the user's assigned requisitions, an approval queue and a recent activity feed.

Requisition list with search and filters

Every request in one table, with the project, the person who raised it, the date the material is needed on site and the number of lines still outstanding. Filtering by project, status or date replaces the phone calls that used to answer the same questions.

The requisitions list in Shiploose: a state band across the top, search and filters, and a table showing each requisition's number, description, project, delivery type, requester, required date, item count, outstanding lines and status.

Requisition detail with photo evidence

Each line records the quantity requested, the quantity picked and the quantity received on site, with photographs attached at loading and again at reception. A disputed delivery is settled by looking at the record rather than by trading recollections, and the change history shows who did what.

A requisition record in Shiploose: the six-state progression, the loading photographs, and an item table showing code, storage location, description and the quantities requested, prepared and received, beside a panel of attachments and the full change history.

Grouped deliveries and delivery notes

A vehicle heading to a site usually carries several requests at once. The warehouse groups the ones that are ready, assigns the vehicle, and the application issues a single delivery note for the load. The receiver signs on arrival and every request in the load takes its status from the delivery.

The create-delivery screen in Shiploose: the requisitions currently ready to ship, each with its project, required date, unloading point and item count, beside a panel for the planned date, the vehicle and notes for the driver.

Delivery planning calendar

A month at a time, with each day coloured by the status of the deliveries on it and the selected day's loads listed alongside. Two vehicles already scheduled to the same site on the same day are visible before a third is booked.

The deliveries calendar in Shiploose: counters for total, in preparation, ready, on the road and delivered above a month grid coloured by delivery state, with the selected day's deliveries listed beside it.

Delivery reporting and exports

Filters on project, status and date range combine, and the totals for deliveries, articles and quantities recalculate with them. Any result on screen can be exported for the person who asked for it.

The deliveries report in Shiploose: search with project, state and date filters, summary counts for deliveries, planned and incomplete, and a table of deliveries by date with their projects, requisition and article counts, quantity and status.

These screens come from a demonstration environment. The projects, people, quantities and photographs in them are invented. No client data appears on this page.

How we ran it

The engagement in four phases

We did not price the build before we understood the work. The first phase is a set of workshops that produce a written specification, the target process and a plan for everything after it.

Analysis and planning
Before any quote

Workshops with the people who do the work: site supervisors, project managers, purchasing and the warehouse. We mapped the process as it ran and as it should run, and wrote both down.
Design and build
In stages

The interface came first and was reviewed with the people on site and in the warehouse. Each part of the application went into real use before the next one started.
Testing and acceptance
Before any site saw it

Their own staff ran the acceptance tests against a written plan, including the paths that fail: a supplier who never delivers, a load that arrives short.
Launch and support
Go-live and after

We were on it through the first weeks, when the edge cases nobody predicted arrive, and left documentation and a support plan behind us.

The result

Material arrives as it was ordered

The warehouse loads what the site actually asked for, and the office can answer for any delivery without phoning anyone.

For the crews

Material requested from the building they are standing in, and a status they do not have to phone for.

For the warehouse

A list to pick from that came out of the request itself, and shortfalls that stay visible until they ship.

For the office

Who approved what, on which project, and reporting that nobody has to rebuild by hand.

Your turn

If a spreadsheet is running your operation

Most companies we meet have one: the file everybody depends on and nobody trusts. Replacing it is ordinary work, and it goes wrong in predictable ways.

We watch the work first

Why the warehouse distrusts a line on a requisition is in no brief. It is on the floor, with the people who get blamed when the truck is wrong.

You get a specification before a price

The analysis phase produces the written specification, the target process and the plan. If you stop there, you still own all three.

Your people sign it off

The crews and the warehouse test it before it reaches a site, and we stay on it through the first weeks, when the real edge cases show up.

Replace the spreadsheet your operation runs on

Describe the process, the people who run it, and the systems it has to live beside. We will tell you what we would build, what we would leave alone, and what it costs.

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