Customized automation for an international logistics service provider
The Bring Group is one of the leading logistics and transportation service providers in Northern Europe. The company offers a wide range of services across the entire supply chain—from road, air, and sea freight to intermodal transport, international freight forwarding, customs clearance, warehouse logistics, and distribution. Everyday, Bring moves general cargo, less-than-truckload and full truckload shipments, containers, parcels, and pallets for industrial and commercial customers worldwide.
To meet the growing demands for digitalization and process automation, Bring has been using WinSped as its central transport management solution since June 2021.
Extensive use of modern WinSped modules
In its day-to-day operations, Bring utilizes numerous WinSped features, including:
- Invoicing Center
- Graphic Planning
- Automation Services
- Application Services
- LIS Converter
- WebSped
- API Connections
- Condition Management
- Additional modules for custom process control, controlling, and statistics
Bring relies particularly heavily on WinSped Script Management, which is based on Python-based coding and enables custom extensions beyond the standard feature set.
The challenge: Increasing automation in complex processes
With the goal of consistently reducing manual tasks, Bring is pursuing a comprehensive automation strategy. This led to the need to fully automate certain communication processes.
The focus was on automated email notifications to carriers, customers, and internal dispatchers. The challenge was to trigger messages precisely when shipments or routes reached a defined status. At the same time, relevant documents were to be automatically sent as attachments.
A typical example: As soon as a route is assigned the status “In transit,” an email is automatically sent to the responsible carrier. This email contains all important information about the route as well as the required accompanying documents as attachments. The email can also be sent manually via Status trigger events or entering a status.
In addition to sending the emails, it was crucial for Bring that all actions are transparently documented. Therefore, a corresponding status or note is automatically stored in the log, ensuring that it remains traceable at all times whether and when a notification was sent.
Furthermore, an intelligent logic was developed that automatically determines the correct recipient based on existing master data. This ensures that information reaches the responsible contacts at all times.
Custom process design with WinSped Script Management
WinSped Script Management was used to implement these requirements. The solution makes it possible to flexibly map custom business processes and adapt them to existing workflows.
In collaboration with Bring, processes were developed that:
- trigger status-based email notifications,
- automatically retrieve relevant shipment and route data,
- provide documents as attachments,
- notify internal employees,
- document shipping operations in an audit-proof manner,
- and automatically determine the correct recipient based on master data logic.
Particular attention was paid to creating an architecture that is as simple as possible while remaining scalable. The developed processes can now be easily expanded and applied to additional use cases.
“We greatly value our collaboration with Ümit. His structured approach, prompt support, and in-depth expertise in WinSped helped us continuously refine our processes. The implementation of automated email communication with our customers represents a significant milestone in our automation strategy,” said Emma Larsson (Product Owner Bring).
Flexibility through open interfaces
In addition, Bring leverages WinSped’s extensive API capabilities to automatically transmit information to external systems and business partners. The combination of APIs, automation services, and custom scripting management creates a powerful foundation for the further digitization of business processes.
Conclusion
The use of this automation, makes the day to day process for Bring forwarders more efficient. Instead of doing a preview of the document and manually writing the emails, the distribution can be done via a one-click-process which is very helpful to the users.
The jointly developed automation solutions ensure faster communication, reduce manual tasks, and lay the groundwork for further growth and a future-oriented process landscape. In this way, the project impressively demonstrates how modern logistics companies can successfully achieve their digitization and automation goals with WinSped.
