Logistics Control Tower

Operations monitoring and exception management

WEB

Role: Product DesignerPlatform: B2B SaaS · Web applicationScope: Domain research, product model, UX/UI, prototyping, measurement

A control room for logistics teams that run hundreds of shipments at once.
Data comes from everywhere: carriers, GPS, drivers, documents, customer deadlines.
The product pulls it into one place, so a dispatcher can act before a delay turns into a failed delivery.
The users are dispatchers and team leads, working in shifts.

How it works

Collect signals
Spot a problem
Prioritise
Assign an owner
Resolve
Check it’s back on plan

Problem

Dispatchers rebuild every problem by hand from five different tools

A truck’s location alone doesn’t tell you if the delivery is okay. The answer is spread across trackers, emails and documents, and by the time someone puts it together, the window has closed.

Tracking sources disagree, and nobody knows which one to trust.
One problem shows up as five alerts.
A critical case can sit for 40 minutes without an owner.
Waiting time at a warehouse is lost money, because nobody collected proof in time.
A delivered load can’t be invoiced because one signature is missing.

Research

I designed around the questions a dispatcher asks during a shift

Mapped a real shift: handoffs, escalation rules and the words operators actually use.
Built one consistent day at a freight broker: 48 shipments, 11 problems, one dispatcher starting at 09:12.
Played the hard cases on it: delays, lost signal, conflicting statuses, a missed handoff.

Insights

A shipment is more than a dot on a map

Health is milestones, ETA, documents, data quality and the deadline together.

Time to breach beats severity

What matters is how long you have left, not how scary the label is.

Imperfect data is the norm

Missing and conflicting signals are everyday work, not edge cases.

Ownership has to be visible

If nobody clearly owns a problem, nobody solves it.

Key questions

Q1
Which shipments need me right now, and what happens if I don’t act?
The network
Q2
What’s critical, what can wait, and which alerts are duplicates or unsure?
The queue
Q3
What changed, who says so, and which deadline is at risk?
One case
Q4
Who owns this, what’s the next step, and when does it escalate?
The response

Decisions

Six decisions behind the control room

DecisionInstead ofWhy

The queue is sorted by time to breach

Sorting by severity

A medium problem due in 10 minutes beats a critical one due tomorrow

Related alerts are grouped into one problem

One row per alert

The dispatcher fixes problems, not symptoms

Every source shows its age, and conflicts stay visible

Showing one “final” status

You can see why the system believes what it believes

A case without an owner is outlined and escalates on a timer

Shared responsibility

Nothing can quietly fall through the cracks

Manual overrides need a reason and keep the old value

Silent edits

The history stays honest for the next shift

The map shows only the selected route, framed

Every route all the time

The network view stays calm until you pick a case

Underneath is one shared model: shipment, execution, exception, resolution. Every screen reads the same data, so nothing has to be rebuilt by hand.

Design

One shift, three stories and a free demo

Q1 · Late delivery

One critical shipment, one control room

A refrigerated load is 42 minutes late, the trackers disagree and nobody owns it yet. Follow the steps under the screen.

NORTHLINEControl TowerDay shift · Tue 13 Oct07:00–15:00 CT09:12CT10:12 ETDO

Exceptions10 open · by time to breach

HANDOVER · ALEX BROOKS · NIGHT4 items · 2 for you

Critical 3At risk 3Data 4On plan 34

TrafficInterstatesWeatherFacilities

48 ACTIVE · 14 NEED ATTENTION · 34 ON PLAN100 MI

Commitments todayWindowNot confirmedPredictionLateUncertain34 on plan hidden · CT

0708091011121314151617

09:12

NL-48231Pickup · RockfordDwell

NL-48177Pickup · JolietNo-show risk

NL-48213Delivery · McDonough

NL-48090Delivery · LouisvilleTemp > 46°F

NL-48244Pickup · Green BayNo tracking

NL-48155Delivery · St. LouisMissing event

NL-48066Delivery · DetroitSlot unconfirmed

NL-48120Delivery · BirminghamHOS

Demo flowTime is simulated and moves only when you act.

01Accept the night handover
02Open the exception
03Take ownership
04Confirm position with the carrier
05Move the delivery window
06Notify the customer
07Confirm arrival and resolve
08Review shift results

Q4 · Detention

Waiting time you can bill, not swallow

A truck waits at the shipper. Timer, reason, customer approval before 10:15, one evidence pack.

NORTHLINEControl TowerDay shift · Tue 13 Oct07:00–15:00 CT09:33CT10:33 ETPN

Exceptions9 open · by time to breach

HANDOVER · ALEX BROOKS · NIGHTAccepted 07:05 CT

Critical 1At risk 3Data 3On plan 34

TrafficInterstatesWeatherFacilities

48 ACTIVE · 14 NEED ATTENTION · 34 ON PLAN100 MI

Commitments todayWindowNot confirmedPredictionLateUncertain34 on plan hidden · CT

0708091011121314151617

09:33

NL-48231Pickup · RockfordDwell

NL-48177Pickup · JolietNo-show risk

NL-48213Delivery · McDonoughNew slot

NL-48090Delivery · LouisvilleTemp > 46°F

NL-48244Pickup · Green BayNo tracking

NL-48155Delivery · St. LouisMissing event

NL-48066Delivery · DetroitSlot unconfirmed

NL-48120Delivery · BirminghamHOS

Demo flowTime is simulated and moves only when you act.

01Open the exception
02Acknowledge the escalation
03Confirm the reason with the shipper
04Get customer pre-approval
05Let free time run out
06Record the departure
07Submit evidence and the charge
08Review shift results

Q3 · Documents

Delivered isn’t closed

Proof of delivery is missing. The system asks the receiver for exactly the missing piece.

NORTHLINEControl TowerDay shift · Tue 13 Oct07:00–15:00 CT13:15CT14:15 ETDO

Exceptions1 open · by time to breach

HANDOVER · ALEX BROOKS · NIGHTAccepted 09:14 CT

Critical 0At risk 0Data 0On plan 34

TrafficInterstatesWeatherFacilities

48 ACTIVE · 14 NEED ATTENTION · 34 ON PLAN100 MI

Commitments todayWindowNot confirmedPredictionLateUncertain34 on plan hidden · CT

0708091011121314151617

13:15

Every commitment left today is on plan.

Demo flowTime is simulated and moves only when you act.

01Open the exception
02Follow up with the carrier
03Receive the driver's upload
04Reject the unsigned copy
05Receive the signed copy
06Accept POD: billing ready
07Sync to TMS and close
08Review shift results

Free demo

Walk the shift yourself

No script. Open any problem, switch filters, follow routes and take ownership.

NORTHLINEControl TowerDay shift · Tue 13 Oct07:00–15:00 CT09:12CT10:12 ETDO

Exceptions10 open · by time to breach

HANDOVER · ALEX BROOKS · NIGHT4 items · 2 for you

Critical 3At risk 3Data 4On plan 34

TrafficInterstatesWeatherFacilities

48 ACTIVE · 14 NEED ATTENTION · 34 ON PLAN100 MI

Commitments todayWindowNot confirmedPredictionLateUncertain34 on plan hidden · CT

0708091011121314151617

09:12

NL-48231Pickup · RockfordDwell

NL-48177Pickup · JolietNo-show risk

NL-48213Delivery · McDonough

NL-48090Delivery · LouisvilleTemp > 46°F

NL-48244Pickup · Green BayNo tracking

NL-48155Delivery · St. LouisMissing event

NL-48066Delivery · DetroitSlot unconfirmed

NL-48120Delivery · BirminghamHOS

Free prototype · click through exceptions, filters, the timeline and the map

Result

Success is problems solved before the customer notices

Main metric: how many critical problems are found and fixed before the promise to the customer breaks.
Also watched: time to spot, time to take ownership, time to fix, cases with no owner, reopened cases, data freshness and manual checks per shipment.

01Problem found
02Reviewed
03Owner assigned
04Action taken
05Back on plan
06Done

How we check it

Domain interviews

A real shift: handoffs, escalation rules, operator language.

Scenario runs

Delays, lost signal, conflicting status, a failed handoff.

Task walkthroughs

Can a dispatcher find the priority, owner and next step alone?

Analytics review

Event definitions, source reliability, baselines and targets.

Design system

A control room where colour means a commitment is at risk

A dispatcher looks at the product for a whole eight-hour shift, so it is dark, flat and quiet: graphite panes split by hairlines, no cards, no decoration. Colour appears only when a commitment is at risk: four severity levels, blue for uncertain data, green for on plan, and amber for “now” and the one action that matters next.

Every id, time, countdown and count is set in IBM Plex Mono, so a column of times can be compared at a glance; the interface itself is IBM Plex Sans at 12 px. The map and the commitments timeline have their own grammar: the timeline encodes time only, and anything that is not about time becomes a chip next to the row.

Graphite panesDark steps for an eight-hour shift; panes are split by hairlines, never lifted into cards.

graphite.990#07090bBehind the map
graphite.950#0c0e11App background
graphite.900#111418Exception panel
graphite.850#171b21Selected row
land.800#161c23States on the map
road.600#3a4552Interstates

Text and hairlines

text.primary
text.muted
text.faint
line
line.soft
line.strong

Three text tiers and two line weights; nothing else separates the panes.

Semantic tokensScreens use roles, not hex values.

Background & surface

color.background.appgraphite.950
color.surface.panegraphite.900
color.surface.selectedgraphite.850
color.surface.mapgraphite.990

Text & border

color.text.primarytext.primary
color.text.mutedtext.muted
color.text.fainttext.faint
color.border.defaultline
color.border.softline.soft

Now & action

color.action.primaryamber.400
color.time.nowamber.400
color.on-actionamber.950

Severity & state

color.severity.criticalred.400
color.severity.highamber.400
color.severity.mediumsky.400
color.severity.lowslate.400
color.state.on-plangreen.600
color.state.datasky.400

Status and timeSeverity, data quality and time are three different questions. The timeline answers only the last one.

Severity

Critical#ff5b4d
High#ffb224
Medium#5cc8ff
Low#8b95a3

Data quality

Healthy
Stale, conflicting, missing
Unavailable

Commitments timeline

Window
Prediction inside
Outside, by severity
Now

Conclusions

A dispatcher goes from a signal to a clear owner and a checked result

The product model, screens, edge cases and metrics work as one flow.
Three different stories, daily triage, billable waiting and document closeout, run on the same system.
In each one, the data, the owner, the next step and the result stay visible from start to end.