Dovetail Wins Gold At The 2016 Logistics Achiever Awards

The Logistics Achiever Awards (LAA) gave recognition for excellence in logistics and supply chain management, recognising outstanding achievements and innovation that have created market advantage for a strong, sustainable foundation into the future.

Dovetail together with their Kenyan partner, Fargo Courier gained two top awards for their collaborative achievements:

  • The Gold Award for excellence in logistics and supply chain management and optimisation of a distribution network.
  • The Overall Winner Award for excellence in innovation and service delivery in a complex logistics environment.

Dovetail partners with Fargo Courier in Kenya

The LAA judges were presented with the details of how logistics challenges were overcome through a partnership between Kenyan courier, Fargo Courier, and South African logistics software provider, Dovetail Business Solutions.

In five short years, between 2010 and 2015 Fargo Courier grew rapidly from having 23 to 87 depots in Kenya, only 12 of which had access to fibre connectivity. Poor roads and common power outages meant they needed to find a software solution that ran off a 3G network for all courier functions and was efficient enough to utilise solar as a more reliable power source. On top of that, the technology and related mobile devices used, needed to be affordable for all their outlets so that they could maintain organic growth. A standard of 95% overnight delivery to the whole country needed to be maintained that gave real-time tracking and transparency to all clients. An incredibly complex billing system with over 430 unique rate matrixes had to be put into a usable automated billing module within the transport software.

The first step was to find the right solution provider who was flexible, adaptable and could manage the difficulties faced within the logistics market in East Africa. Various companies across the world were considered and Dovetail were chosen as they had the expertise and knowledge to cater for such challenges.

Operational improvements included:

  • Reduced paperwork chain in a consignment lifecycle from six manually written documents to just one (being the original waybill).
  • Only e-pod’s (no hard copy) to all 950+ account clients.
  • Reducing the bottleneck of collection data from the main Nairobi hub by inputting the majority of consignee/consignor information out in the field, enabling them to increase volume and reduce turnaround times.
  • Real-time tracking outside of the city – Fargo Courier is the only one that offers this service at no extra cost to the user.
  • Improved value by including SMS confirmations on delivery to select accounts, giving real-time data, in addition, to live web-based track and trace to all clients.

As of July 2016, thanks to the implementation of the new Dovetail TMS and Mobile systems, Fargo has seen a 12% growth in a year where Kenya has experienced some of the worst economic times since the 2007 post-election challenges.

Looking to the future

For the Kenya project to work, the solutions need to be consistently improved. The aim is to ultimately have E-Waybill for all the large storage and warehousing clients so there isn’t a single document printed throughout the product lifecycle. Fargo Courier is looking at introducing Dovetail’s on-line waybill capture module to improve user experience and speed with an integrated credit function through a mobile application (app) linked to mobile money services.

The last step would be to integrate their storage and warehousing division by using Dovetail’s 3PL Warehouse Management solution together with the FreightWare TMS and Mobile ePOD modules to have an end-to-end tracking function for their clients. The current business model is being rolled out by Fargo Courier in Uganda in 2016 and in 2017, using the same solutions provided by Dovetail.

Congratulations to Fargo Courier and Dovetail on an incredible achievement and well-deserved awards.