CHAPTER 02 · DISCOVER
We Learn Your Operation Before We Propose Anything
One day, split between the dispatch floor and a travel center. The VP of Operations framed the stakes up front — turnover, fuel margin, and an audit that found gaps nobody had flagged. Then we did what we always do: talk to people, watch the work, map it, and rank what we found.
WHAT WE ACTUALLY DID
We Don't Just Run a Meeting
A roadmap session is where it starts, not where discovery ends. Interviews, documentation, the tools already in use — all of it, before we propose anything.
Interviews
34 sessions / 27 stakeholders
We start with the VP of Operations, then work down through dispatch, terminal management, and the drivers themselves — not just the people who called the meeting.
Every session recorded, transcribed, and tagged.
Documentation
58 sources reviewed
Dispatch logs, HOS records, and the shadow spreadsheets terminals built because the TMS couldn't keep up.
Indexed so the agents can reference it directly.
Systems & Tools
7 systems mapped
Everything dispatch and the terminals already touch — no new platform to learn.
All seven connected before we proposed anything.
Terminal walkthroughs
We watched a travel center run a full shift change, not just heard about it from a manager's office.
Process mapping & improvement
Every workflow got mapped end-to-end, then we asked what should change before any of it gets automated.
Adjacent conversations
We talked to fuel procurement and safety/compliance, not just dispatch — the people the routing decision touches without owning it.
AUTOMATION MAP
Of 185,000 hours a year spent on manual work, here's how much we can take off dispatch's plate
Stays human — exception handling, driver relationships, final dispatch judgment calls.
Of the 125,800 hrs, here's what each workflow contributes
P1
P2
P3
P4
TOTAL
P1
Per-Load Route & Fuel Planning
58K hrs/yr · $4.2M
P2
Travel Center Demand & Workforce
34K hrs/yr · $2.6M
P3
Driver Retention Signals
22K hrs/yr · $1.5M
P4
HOS Compliance Documentation
12K hrs/yr · $0.8M
What we picked to build first
Per-load route, stop, and fuel plan
Highest-leverage, lowest-risk: the data already existed in the TMS and fuel-card system, every dispatcher felt this pain daily, and a visible win in 30 days would change every later conversation more than a bigger, slower project would.
Committed on the wall. Working session scheduled within 10 days.
16 weeks to the first system live · then ongoing
Discover
Working session, on-site
Per-load route & fuel plan
Wave 1
Travel center demand & workforce
Wave 1
Driver retention signals
Wave 2
THE METHOD
Same Approach, Every Engagement
Most AI roadmaps fail the same way — a list of interesting projects with no way to choose which one matters. Ours turns what we actually find on the floor into a ranked, ownable plan.
Discover
What do you repeat? What frustrates you? What runs on a schedule?
→ A named list of the real, repeated work — across every department.
Map & Improve
How does this actually happen, workarounds included — and what should change before we automate it?
→ An end-to-end picture of each workflow, cleaned up first.
Rank & Commit
What ships first? Who owns it? How do we know it worked?
→ A ranked plan with a named owner and a metric on every line.
UP NEXT · BUILD