Skip to content
Tiatra, LLCTiatra, LLC
Tiatra, LLC
Information Technology Solutions for Washington, DC Government Agencies
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
    • IT Engineering and Support
    • Software Development
    • Information Assurance and Testing
    • Project and Program Management
  • Clients & Partners
  • Careers
  • News
  • Contact
 
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
    • IT Engineering and Support
    • Software Development
    • Information Assurance and Testing
    • Project and Program Management
  • Clients & Partners
  • Careers
  • News
  • Contact

How Brexit and low code helped transform Farm Trans’ supply chain

It’s no secret that Brexit created an international commerce headache for many. This is particularly true for companies responsible for transport of goods and services between the EU to the newly emancipated UK, thanks to new customs requirements that have disrupted trade between the two entities.

Netherlands-based Farm Trans was not immune from this disruption. Even before the new customs requirements of Brexit were scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2021, a customer of the Netherlands-based food-transport specialist asked the company for a specific solution to help them navigate the new rules for shipping goods between the EU and the UK.

To meet the customer’s need, Farm Trans adopted a low-code approach to building a new logistics application since, given the uncertainties of Brexit, agility and flexibility in the development process were crucial. That approach paved the way to a fundamental change in the company’s logistics management, but not without some twists and turns.

Michiel van Gerwen

Michiel van Gerwen.

Farm Trans

“There has been a lot of uncertainty along the way because of how often Brexit was delayed,” said Michiel van Gerwen, team leader for Connected Services at Farm Trans, of the complex process of the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU.  “It was a lot of sitting back and waiting to see what would happen.”

However, by September 2020, it had become clear that there would be new customs requirements beginning in January 2021, which sent customers “panicking to make sure the products would still be getting delivered,” he said.

Spreadsheets can’t keep up

Until Brexit, Farm Trans — a medium-size to large food transport company that has its own fleet of trucks and trailers but also works with local transport specialists in other parts of Europe — used a system of Excel spreadsheets to keep track of transport across its European supply chain.

However, to solve the new custom requirements for crossing the new U.K. border, “that was too much labor,” he said. Farm Trans knew it needed to provide an easy-to-use and agile connected system for its customers, Van Gerwen said.

“No other party or transporter in Europe ever faced something like Brexit,” he told CIO. “We went from an open market to a closed market. There wasn’t a module we could just buy [to solve the problem.]”

Van Gerwen and his team put their heads together with the customs agent that was handling its transport into the UK, as well as a solution provider with which Farm Trans already had a relationship, Cape Groep.

CAPE Groep suggested that the company build an in-house solution using the Mendix low-code platform, with the idea that an agile development process would be suitable for a project where requirements could change.

Indeed, the new requirements at the time Farm Trans started the project still weren’t entirely clear, van Gerwen said.

Advantages of low code

“With low code, you can build very fast and very specifically, and make changes rapidly as well,” he told CIO. “We had only a short time to come up with a solution. There was no room to fail.”

What eventually became Farm Trans’ Logistics Managements System (LMS) started with the initial solution for one customer, a company that produces frozen potatoes. As Van Gerwen and his team were hammering out requirements and implementation of the system, it occurred to them that it could be expanded to all of its customers to handle transport logistics for the company’s entire supply chain.

This expansion idea also was an easy sell to Farm Trans’ leadership team, which gave Van Gerwen the green light to develop the system — a streamlined logistics application could give the company an edge over a competitive field that collectively was trying to solve a completely novel set of challenges.

“Looking at what Brexit did also was to take away the small transporters that couldn’t cope with these changes,” Van Gerwen told CIO. “So now [by meeting the challenge] we could get ahead of most of our competitors.”

Multi-phase development with big picture in mind

Farm Trans rolled out LMS in phases, with the first priority to set up the customs-requirement system by January for the specific customer who requested it. However, Gerwen and his team always kept the big picture in mind as they developed the system.

“With every decision we made we kept in mind that we wanted to set it up for other customers, so we left some things open,” something that was easy to do using the Mendix platform, he said.

Farm Trans launched LMS in time to handle the UK custom requirements in January, then spent several weeks working with its operational team to hone the user experience, Gerwen said. By spring, other customers also could use the system to facilitate the export of goods from Europe to the UK, he said.

Within six months, the company then expanded LMS functionality to consolidate “all of the logistics of the supply chain into the solution,” Van Gerwen explained.

The system is now “total service” and can process all data — from order management to transport to receipt of goods — in the Mendix-based application, and is updated automatically using electronic data interchange (EDI) interfaces with Farm Trans’ most important transporters.

Farm Trans also began a phase of development in November to facilitate the import of goods into the UK, as the current functionality of LMS focuses mainly on the export process, Van Gerwen said.

Streamlining the supply chain

By streamlining the supply-chain process, LMS has allowed Farm Trans to focus more on its core competencies to provide added value to customers, Van Gerwen said. However, the system, like Brexit, is still a work in progress. And like Brexit, it also did not come without its challenges along the way.

A current priority of a new phase of the system’s rollout is to prepare for Brexit rule changes that will come into effect at the start of 2022. However, Van Gerwen’s in-house team — comprising two others who deal with LMS at the operations level — will try to learn from missteps made in the initial development process as they evolve the system.

One thing they will do is try to gather all stakeholders to discuss requirements, responsibilities and deliverables before adding new functionality, something that is essential for supply-chain projects in particular, Van Gerwen told CIO.

The team also will be sure to factor in what can go wrong with the system as well as what can go right, something they learned can be a big hassle if it isn’t addressed early on, he said.

For instance, LMS didn’t immediately include a way to adjust information that was entered into the system incorrectly, he said. “We had to fill out an Excel sheet to work around even if it was just a small adjustment — for example, if it said the product was on pallets instead of in boxes, we had to take 20 minutes to fix the problem,” losing valuable time, Van Gerwen said.

Low code leads to savings

Overall, however, building LMS using the Mendix platform has saved the company considerable time and money, he said.

“I think it would have been a lot more expensive if we used an already-made solution,” Van Gerwen said. “This way it’s doing exactly what it should be for us in a very short amount of time.”

The success of using Mendix also has inspired Farm Trans to consider the platform for new solutions to continue to transform its business digitally, he said.

The company already is working on developing its second solution based on Mendix with an app that can visualize data from the company’s data warehouse to provide customized reports to its customers via a portal. The system will replace weekly reports about their transport activity that Farm Trans currently sends to them, Van Gerwen said.


Read More from This Article: How Brexit and low code helped transform Farm Trans’ supply chain
Source: News

Category: NewsJanuary 26, 2022
Tags: art

Post navigation

PreviousPrevious post:Virgin Media O2 CTO on changing IT leadership to meet M&A challengesNextNext post:African data breaches: A look at the evolving threat landscape

Related posts

Barb Wixom and MIT CISR on managing data like a product
May 30, 2025
Avery Dennison takes culture-first approach to AI transformation
May 30, 2025
The agentic AI assist Stanford University cancer care staff needed
May 30, 2025
Los desafíos de la era de la ‘IA en todas partes’, a fondo en Data & AI Summit 2025
May 30, 2025
“AI 비서가 팀 단위로 지원하는 효과”···퍼플렉시티, AI 프로젝트 10분 완성 도구 ‘랩스’ 출시
May 30, 2025
“ROI는 어디에?” AI 도입을 재고하게 만드는 실패 사례
May 30, 2025
Recent Posts
  • Barb Wixom and MIT CISR on managing data like a product
  • Avery Dennison takes culture-first approach to AI transformation
  • The agentic AI assist Stanford University cancer care staff needed
  • Los desafíos de la era de la ‘IA en todas partes’, a fondo en Data & AI Summit 2025
  • “AI 비서가 팀 단위로 지원하는 효과”···퍼플렉시티, AI 프로젝트 10분 완성 도구 ‘랩스’ 출시
Recent Comments
    Archives
    • May 2025
    • April 2025
    • March 2025
    • February 2025
    • January 2025
    • December 2024
    • November 2024
    • October 2024
    • September 2024
    • August 2024
    • July 2024
    • June 2024
    • May 2024
    • April 2024
    • March 2024
    • February 2024
    • January 2024
    • December 2023
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • September 2023
    • August 2023
    • July 2023
    • June 2023
    • May 2023
    • April 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    Categories
    • News
    Meta
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org
    Tiatra LLC.

    Tiatra, LLC, based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, proudly serves federal government agencies, organizations that work with the government and other commercial businesses and organizations. Tiatra specializes in a broad range of information technology (IT) development and management services incorporating solid engineering, attention to client needs, and meeting or exceeding any security parameters required. Our small yet innovative company is structured with a full complement of the necessary technical experts, working with hands-on management, to provide a high level of service and competitive pricing for your systems and engineering requirements.

    Find us on:

    FacebookTwitterLinkedin

    Submitclear

    Tiatra, LLC
    Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.