Shipping and Transport

01

The trip the delivery note never had

A delivery note knows who signed for it. It does not know that it was the fourth of eleven stops, or who was driving. Here a stop carries its sequence, its planned window, its load list and its proof of delivery, and the driver and the vehicle are real fleet records — not a name typed into a box.

02

Cash at the door, matched to the bank

What the customer paid at each door, what the driver handed across the counter, and the deposit that turned up on the statement the next morning — three numbers that have to agree, and a shortage you see the same evening rather than at the end of the month.

03

Demurrage before it is an invoice

Two clocks on every box: demurrage at the terminal from the day it was discharged, detention off it until the empty is back. Free time, the daily rate, the last free day and what is running right now — with what is recoverable from the customer kept apart from what the company is carrying itself.

04

A container number that is actually a container number

Eleven characters, four letters and seven digits, and the last one is a check digit computed from the other ten. Type it wrong and the form says so before the row is saved — and offers the digit it should have been.

05

The cut-offs that sink shipments

Shipping instructions, verified gross mass, gate-in. Miss one by an hour and the box waits a week for the next vessel. They sit on the booking, on the board, and on the confirmation the carrier and the customer both read.

06

ETA against ATA, in hours

Eleven standard milestones, each with what was promised, what is believed now and what actually happened. The board sorts the late first and names the reason, because that is the only question a customer really asks.