Work AHW Global
AHW Global
A logistics operation asked for an ERP. The systems underneath it could not agree on what a shipment was.
- Sector
- Logistics and cross-border shipping
- Scale
- 19+ locations, one system of record
- Engagement
- Live shipping platform, then a logistics ERP
- Constraint found
- Data
- Systems
- System of record, customer accounts, FedEx, DHL and UPS integrations
The situation
AHW Global is a multi-location fulfilment wholesaler. It resells carrier capacity to smaller logistics firms and e-commerce sellers across more than nineteen sites.
Every shipment it handled was keyed by hand into the FedEx, DHL and UPS portals separately. The typing was slow and entries were missed or wrong, but the larger cost was harder to see: the carriers, not AHW, held the record of AHW's own business.
The constraint we found
Data
The binding constraint
Three systems held three definitions of a shipment, and none of them belonged to AHW. Any view of its own operation had to be assembled from records it did not control.
Faster data entry would have treated the symptom. The constraint was ownership of the record.
What we considered and set aside
Buy multi-carrier shipping software
It would have reduced the typing without changing who owned the data.
Add staff to clear the backlog
More people working the same three portals, with the record still held by the carriers.
Build the system of record and bind the carriers to it
The path taken. Shipments are raised once, by the party that originates them, and route to the carrier without a second pass.
What was built
-
01
One system of record
Every shipment, customer account and location on one platform, across more than nineteen sites.
-
02
Carriers bound to the customer account
FedEx, DHL and UPS connected directly to each customer account.
-
03
Entry at the source
The party that originates a shipment raises it once, and it routes to the carrier without being keyed again.
-
04
One point of entry
57 separate carrier entry points consolidated into one.
-
05
A customer-facing product
What began as an internal efficiency fix became part of the service AHW's own customers use.
What made the difference
Treating the record as the asset. Software that only sped up the typing would have left the carriers holding AHW's data. Owning the record turned an internal fix into a customer-facing product.
Outcome
What moved.
4–6 hrs
Processing time recovered daily
57→1
Carrier entry points consolidated
19+
Locations on one system of record
3
Carrier networks integrated
Figures drawn from client-side reporting.
Start Here
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