A changing market
As European industry faces rising costs and international production patterns shift, Fracht-Polytra sees opportunities to support larger volumes of European road distribution.
But larger volumes come with a challenge. Customers expect competitive rates and reliable service, while the cost of operating a logistics business in Europe continues to rise.
For Fracht-Polytra, growth cannot simply mean adding more people to process more orders.
Building Road4PL differently
Fracht-Polytra already handled individual road transport assignments through its Road3PL department.
With Road4PL, the company wanted to move towards longer-term customer contracts, closer system integrations and larger transport volumes. That called for a different operating model.
Fracht-Polytra had recently introduced a new ERP designed for road transport. Having already started using Vectrix in Road3PL, the company decided to include automated order processing from the beginning when developing Road4PL.
Instead of building a manual process first and automating it later, automation became part of how the new department was designed.
From customer email to transport planning
A customer sends a transport assignment by email or PDF.
Vectrix reads the request, extracts the relevant transport information and prepares the order for Fracht-Polytra’s road transport ERP.
An employee verifies and accepts the prepared order in the Vectrix dashboard. The order then enters the ERP, where the planners take over.
They decide which vehicles or subcontracted carriers should handle the transport, coordinate available capacity and follow up on shipments.
The difference is straightforward. Planners no longer need to manually enter every transport assignment before they can start planning.
How an order moves today
- Vectrix, automated
- People at Fracht-Polytra
VectrixAutomated
Fracht-PolytraPeople
- CustomerEmail or PDFA transport order arrives, in the email itself or as an attachment.
- VectrixReads the requestThe email, and the PDF attached to it.
- VectrixPrepares the orderExtracts the transport details and fills in the order for the ERP.
- EmployeeVerifies and acceptsChecks the prepared order in the Vectrix dashboard.
- VectrixEnters the ERPThe accepted order appears in the road transport ERP.
- PlannersPlan the transportAllocate vehicles or subcontracted carriers, coordinate and follow up.
What changes for the planner?
The planners still allocate the transport and follow it up. What changes is the work that comes before it: reading each request and typing it into the ERP.
One order, before and after
- Vectrix
- People at Fracht-Polytra
Without automated order entry
- Read incoming transport requests.
- Identify the relevant order information.
- Enter transport details manually.
- Prepare orders for planning.
- Allocate transport and follow up.
With Vectrix
- Vectrix reads incoming orders.
- Vectrix prepares the order information.
- An employee verifies and accepts.
- The order enters the ERP.
- Planners allocate transport and follow up.
More orders before the next hire
For Fracht-Polytra, the business case is about capacity.
With a conventional approach, one employee handles about six or seven orders a day. With Vectrix taking over order entry, Road4PL is built for ten to fifteen.
Orders per person per day
6–7Conventional approachEstimate
10–15With VectrixTarget
That is roughly twice the orders per employee.
The point is not a smaller team. It is a team that can take on growing volumes for longer before the next hire is needed.
For us, it’s mainly about postponing the moment we need to bring in the next full-time employee.
Order entry is the starting point
With automated order processing running in Road4PL, Fracht-Polytra and Vectrix are looking at what comes next.
Together, they are exploring where to automate further down the chain: more document processing and information exchange across Fracht-Polytra’s logistics activities, including ocean freight.
For Fracht-Polytra, the next step is not automation for its own sake. It is finding more operational work that can be completed automatically, while its people remain responsible for customers, transport planning and exceptions.