42% faster dispatching: Replacing a Delphi dispatch system with a cloud web app (logistics)

Delphi silo and missing mobility

A mid-sized logistics provider in Schleswig-Holstein plans routes for regional and long-distance part-load traffic. For years the core was a Delphi dispatch system: it only ran on a handful of office PCs, crashed under load, and could not be rolled out sensibly to drivers’ tablets or phones.

Dispatchers printed lists, re-keyed changes multiple times, and fell back to Excel when the client froze. Every night run depended on a few workstations—one outage blocked the entire team.

Maintenance cost without new features

Maintenance by a specialized vendor consumed a five-figure annual budget without delivering new capabilities. Peak-load hotfixes before holidays were expensive and only plannable with lead time—not when TMS failed unexpectedly.

Drivers often called the control centre because they had no reliable view of current stops and times on the road—tying up capacity and increasing errors in arrival communication.

“We worked around the old system for years—Excel, phone, printouts. Modernization had to be possible without delivery standstill.”

Integration gaps to partners and drivers

Subcontractors and an external TMS partner delivered data in different formats; manual alignment cost hours per week. A cloud-ready, API-first architecture was a prerequisite, not optional luxury.

Management and dispatch leads wanted to prepare forecasting and depot expansion—in the Delphi monolith that would again have been an expensive one-off project.

Strangler migration and domain workshops

Groenewold IT Solutions structured the business logic from the legacy stack together with dispatch and IT in workshops and planned a phased migration to a modern, API-first web application. The core is a cloud-based dispatch UI with real-time vehicle status that initially covered only new orders and selected regions in parallel with the legacy system (strangler pattern).

Delivery follows our legacy modernization profile—with clear interfaces instead of big bang. For hosting decisions, see the on-premise vs cloud comparison; industry context: logistics & transport.

REST APIs, PWA, and secure operations

Interfaces to subcontractors and an existing TMS partner were implemented as stable REST APIs; sensitive data is transferred encrypted. Drivers received a progressive web app on their smartphones: tours, POD hints, and messages from one source.

API integration and monitoring secure ongoing operation; budget can be assessed via the legacy modernization calculator.

“Parallel operation was the key: dispatchers could fall back to the familiar system anytime—until the new UI worked in daily life.”

Go-live and Made in Germany

Development was done in Germany (Leer/East Frisia) with clear release cycles, automated tests, and a war room on go-live weekend so night distribution was not stopped unintentionally.

Rollback plans, feature flags per region, and documented cutover checklists minimized risk for night shift and weekend traffic.

Measurable relief for dispatch

After six months of productive parallel operation and full cutover (illustrative scenario): 38 fewer hours per week of manual reconciliation and duplicate data entry for the dispatch team.

42% shorter average time from order intake to first fixed tour assignment. Roughly 47% reduction in external maintenance costs for the old Delphi stack.

Mobility, fewer calls, scalability

Far fewer short status calls to the control centre because drivers see the live plan on mobile—estimated 120 fewer per month.

The solution scales with the customer’s growth and can be extended with forecasting and additional depots without sliding back into a monolithic silo.