Putting last-mile first
A logistics player with the future in mind
The future ahead
Widriksson Logistik has a long history in the true spirit of entrepreneurship. Their journey began almost 70 years ago, from a small-scale hauling business, to what they are today – a leading player within last-mile and IT logistics solutions in Sweden.
The foundation of their success has always been clear: to deliver sustainable logistical solutions, both digital and physical. Today, they work with customers with high demands on quality, sustainability and trackability.
The collaboration between Widriksson Logistik and SQLI Nordics stretches back to 2017. At this time, Widriksson began its investment in the new business area of IT logistics. The first project was to create a delivery platform adapted for last-mile deliveries, which SQLI Nordics was trusted to help build.
From idea to last-mile
The goal of Widriksson Logistik was to create a delivery platform adapted specifically for last-mile distribution in cities. The service would give customers and recipients a better overview and control over each delivery, and be user-friendly, flexible and convenient for drivers.
There were few equivalent solutions on the market at this time. By offering a platform with this kind of flexibility—which could scale and adapt to customer needs—they saw the potential and a possibility to quickly gain market shares.
Solution
The work to develop the MVP (the project's first phase, a so-called Minimum Viable Product) into a full-fledged solution has been ongoing from 2017 up until today. The platform consists of three parts: a back-office system for administration, route planning and customer service, an app for drivers and a web app for the final recipient of the shipment.
The basis of all projects when building something new is a proper understanding of what problems you want to solve. By starting with the customer journey, we got a broad overview with several perspectives where we could easily find, evaluate and solve different types of problems.
The insights from the customer journey then became the basis that helped us prioritize the project. In this case, we found three clear areas to focus the work around: easily accessible information and control for the end recipient, flexible and time-efficient handling for the driver, and customization options and clear information flows for the customer.
Tech as an enabler
The strength of the platform we built together with Widriksson is its flexibility and how it can be adapted to customers' specific needs in several ways.
Behind the success is the microservice concept where we have worked with several integrations and gateways, e.g. system for order management, route planning and temperature logging. Working serverless creates another dimension of flexibility. Both new and existing systems, can be added with ease.
Other technical tools used in the project are:
- Net
- React
- MongoDB
- AWS
- Xamarin
- Ably
The choice of technology is one of the success factors in the project. Working with modern and reliable tools gives us better opportunities to build and develop faster, but also to test and evaluate the solution.
The technology, together with the way of working, where the group in close dialogue and cooperation with the customer, made it possible to maintain a high pace throughout the project. Another big key is the trust from the customer. As a technology supplier, we have had to explore, try and test our way to find the best solutions.
Result
Today, the solution is used by several large customers, and thousands of runs are made daily in major cities such as Stockholm, Copenhagen and Gothenburg – a clear sign that we are on the right track. But this is just the beginning, and we have more stops to make together on Widriksson's journey towards becoming the leading supplier of sustainable logistics solutions in the Nordics.