Demonstration project
Meridian
An operating system for freight operations, replacing spreadsheets and radio calls with a single shared picture of every movement.
Overview
One operating picture for a business that never stops moving.
Meridian coordinates freight across dispatch, drivers, and customer service. The work had grown faster than the tools holding it together — handovers lived in spreadsheets, and the real state of a shipment lived in someone's memory.
The engagement covered product definition, the interface system, and the platform that now runs daily operations.
Challenge
Operational knowledge was trapped in individual heads.
Dispatchers worked from three systems at once. Customer service answered questions by interrupting dispatch. Nobody could see the whole network at a glance, and every shift change cost time.
The product had to earn its place in a high-tempo environment where a slow interface is an operational failure.
Approach
We started on the floor, not in the brief.
Time with dispatchers, drivers, and account managers established the real sequence of decisions. We mapped the exceptions first, because exceptions were where the existing tools failed.
The result was a product defined around the moments that actually determine whether a shipment arrives on time.
Strategy
Define the smallest complete system.
We agreed a scope that covered one end-to-end operational loop rather than fragments of several. That loop became the foundation the rest of the platform is now built on.
Experience
A calm surface over a demanding process.
The interface is organised around a single live board, with depth available only where it is needed. Status is communicated through position, weight, and colour drawn from a restrained palette rather than through alerts.
Design
An interface system built for density.
We designed a compact typographic system that holds up under long shifts and small screens, with components specified for every operational state — loading, delayed, reassigned, and complete.
Engineering
Correctness where it counts.
The platform was built around an event-driven core so that operational state is derived from a recorded history rather than overwritten. Integration points with existing carriers and telematics were isolated behind a service layer.
Technology
Chosen for the second year.
A typed end-to-end stack, a relational core, and managed infrastructure keep the system legible to the team that maintains it. Every dependency was a deliberate decision.
Outcome
A single source of operational truth.
Dispatch, drivers, and customer service now work from the same live picture. Handovers that previously required a call happen inside the product, and the platform has become the system of record for daily operations.
Because Meridian is a demonstration project, no performance figures are published here.
Technology
- TypeScript
- React
- Node.js
- PostgreSQL
- AWS
- Mapbox
