Quickline Logistics: 4 hours per week recovered from route coordination admin

Quickline Logistics is a Yorkshire-based haulage and delivery operation that routes goods for regional manufacturers and distributors across the north of England. The business runs 14 vehicles and processes around 60 to 80 delivery routes per week.

The problem

Before the automation sprint, every route required a manual coordination sequence. A dispatcher would confirm the route with the driver by phone or message, generate a route briefing document from a template, send it to the driver and any relevant subcontractors, update the operations tracker, and handle any exceptions or changes by email.

That cycle consumed an average of four hours of dispatcher time every week, not including the interruptions it caused. Routes that changed mid-day required the entire sequence to restart. Exceptions generated email chains that were difficult to track. Drivers occasionally received outdated briefing documents.

"We knew it was inefficient. We just did not know how to fix it without hiring another person or buying an expensive logistics platform we did not fully need."

The solution

The Reduce Admin sprint designed and built an automated coordination workflow that handled the full cycle from route confirmation to driver briefing without manual intervention.

The system integrated with the existing route planning tool and operations tracker. When a route was confirmed, the system automatically generated the briefing document from live data, sent it to the relevant driver and subcontractors, updated the tracker, and flagged any exceptions for human review rather than requiring a human to initiate every step.

Exception handling, which had previously required email chains, was replaced with a structured notification system that routed alerts to the right person with the relevant context attached.

The result

Four hours of dispatcher time recovered per week. Over 200 hours per year. The dispatcher now spends that time on higher-value tasks that require judgement: negotiating subcontractor rates, managing relationships with new clients, and planning route efficiency improvements.

The briefing document error rate dropped to zero. Drivers receive consistent, up-to-date information on every route. The exception notification system reduced email volume by approximately 70%.

"The first week after handover, I kept waiting for something to break. It just worked. That was the surprise."

Timeline and cost

The full sprint ran for 78 days from the initial Operations Review to handover. The fixed fee for the engagement was £2,400. At the current cost of the dispatching time recovered, the system pays for itself within the first 12 weeks of operation.