Freight operations

Large furniture orders often have several pieces that move together or reach the consignee at different times. Freight Dispatcher uses the order and its lines as the source for allocation. The allocation workflow reads draft and open lines, creates an allocated-to-carrier shipment event for each eligible line, marks those lines allocated, approves the parent order and records a receipt for the run. It skips allocations already recorded, so repeating the action does not duplicate the initial freight event.

A shipment event holds its stage, status, timestamp, location, units and region. The stages cover carrier allocation, warehouse pickup, packing and wrapping, transit, delivery and return to warehouse. These are operational events linked to the order. They let a coordinator see what was recorded and when, rather than relying on a single overall order status.

• Allocation. Work from the linked lines and record a freight event per eligible line.
• Carrier handoff. Keep the carrier or 3PL name and its own reference with the order and region.
• Dispatch. Release an approved order to record in-transit events, fulfill its lines and advance the order with a receipt.

Set a clear rule for who enters the carrier reference, who reviews a submitted handoff and when a dispatcher may release the order. Decide whether pickup, wrapping and transit events are entered by the operations team or received from a connected carrier system. The handoff record holds a status and reference; a carrier’s booking or tracking response remains a separate connection and operating responsibility.

The release workflow acts on an approved order. It creates an in-transit event per line, marks lines fulfilled, moves the order to delivered with a new revision and records one receipt for the run. Because that order transition happens at release, agree how your team distinguishes dispatch evidence from physical delivery evidence. Reconciliation should inspect shipment, payment and receipt records before the final delivery signoff is accepted.

Use a bedroom order with two lines. Confirm and review it, then allocate both lines. Verify that each has one allocation event and the lines are allocated. Create a carrier handoff with the carrier’s reference. Release the approved order and inspect the new in-transit events, line states, order revision and whole-run receipt. Compare event timestamps and units with the expected load. If one shipment is marked failed, keep it visible for delivery reconciliation and exception handling rather than treating the order status alone as proof of arrival.

Repeat the allocation run on the same case. The original allocation events should remain the only ones for those lines. This gives the dispatcher a practical way to test duplicate protection during a pilot.

• In-Transit And Delivered Freight — Transit and delivery events with order, stage, time and units.
• Open Damage And Delivery Exceptions — Freight issues that need an assigned investigation.
• Freight Operations Overview — Loading, transit and delivery health beside open exceptions.

See freight fulfillment and delivery reconciliation.