The challenge
Anyone with a shipment on the water wants to know where it is. The information existed, but sat scattered across shipping lines and per-carrier tracking environments. So status questions came in by email and phone, and the team had to look up the current state shipment by shipment.
For a forwarder that's a double loss: the client waits for an answer, and the team loses time on lookup work a system does better.
Our approach
- 01
Client portal with automatic account
Anyone booking a shipment with Meilink Project Forwarding automatically gets their own login. The portal shows all of their shipments with departure status, any delays and expected arrival, visible around the clock.
- 02
Public tracker for sharing
Alongside the client portal sits a public track and trace: the status of a single shipment can be looked up by container, B/L or AWB number. Meilink's clients share one shipment with their own end client, without exposing any other shipments.
- 03
Automatic data through Shipsgo
Tracking runs on container data through Shipsgo, so sea freight statuses update automatically, whatever the shipping line. Air freight can be followed by AWB number too.
- 04
Start small, keep building
The portal was deliberately kept compact and taken live, and has grown since in small, well-scoped steps: from port-to-port tracking today towards broader chain tracking, with Live Position on a map as the next step.
The result
The portal runs live in production and Meilink has announced it to its own clients. Clients follow their shipments around the clock, share them with their end clients through the public tracker, and the per-question lookup work has gone from the team.
The portal is being actively developed further, with broader chain tracking and Live Position on the map as the next steps. You can try the public tracker yourself via the links.