Before the lorry leaves: a practical factory dispatch checklist

Start with one job record, not another group chat

Picture a factory with several lorries serving its warehouse, suppliers and customers. A request arrives by message, the warehouse changes the collection time, and a driver has already been allocated elsewhere. Each person may have a correct piece of information, but nobody has the complete current instruction.

A shared job record should give the request a stable reference. Record the collecting and receiving locations, ready-from time, required arrival window, load description, known weight, dimensions or pallet needs, and the person who can resolve missing information. If a value is unknown, mark it unknown and give it an owner. An empty cell must not silently become approval.

This is a workflow design, not a requirement to buy software immediately. A carefully controlled spreadsheet can be a useful starting point. The test is whether two dispatchers can identify the same current vehicle, driver and next action without interpreting a conversation.

Use a dispatch-ready check with named owners

A worked example: the available truck is the wrong truck

In a fictional planning example, Job F-101 needs an 8-tonne load moved from Factory A. Truck T-01 has a simplified 5-tonne planning capacity, T-02 has 10 tonnes, and T-03 is in maintenance. Choosing the first vehicle with an empty schedule would accept the wrong information: T-01 fails the example's load check and T-03 is unavailable.

T-02 is the candidate, not an automatic release. The dispatcher still checks the actual vehicle and cargo requirements, receiving arrangements, driver availability and competing assignments. The driver then accepts the instruction. Only the authorised operational process can release the vehicle for departure.

The public factory demo deliberately shows this small decision chain. Its tonnage comparison is not axle-load calculation, a legal loading assessment or a vehicle safety certificate. Real deployment needs the relevant local operating and safety requirements agreed separately.

A dispatch record your team can review together

This is a sample record design, not a claim that every field is implemented in the demo. Use internal job references and role labels; keep customer details out of the public exercise.

If the receiver changes the time after the driver accepted revision 1, record the new window as revision 2. The responsible team must assess the effect on allocation and obtain the confirmations required by its process. Keep the earlier response as history, not approval of a changed instruction.

Refusal should reopen the work, not erase the history

When a driver cannot take the job, keep the original assignment, the response and the reason together. Change the current state to awaiting reassignment, give dispatch the next action, and record the replacement as a new assignment event. Do not overwrite the first driver's name and lose why the plan changed.

The same principle applies to delay. Record the reported cause and time, the current estimate if known, and who will confirm the revised arrangement. A delay note is not proof that the receiving site has agreed to a later arrival. Keep that confirmation as a separate fact.

Do not turn a green screen into permission to move

The UK HSE's loading guidance emphasises advance coordination between companies and safeguards against a vehicle moving before loading is safe. That is a useful general safety reference, not a statement of Malaysian legal compliance. A dispatch screen should point to the responsible release process, not replace it.

Source: HSE: Loading guidance (UK)

What to test before expanding the system

Begin with one department or a representative set of jobs. Record which handoffs still require a phone call and why. Add GPS or integrations only after the decision they will support is clear; more location data will not by itself resolve an unaccepted assignment.

1. Create two overlapping jobs and prove the same active driver or vehicle cannot be silently allocated twice.
2. Reject a job, reassign it and check that the original reason remains visible.
3. Change a load or time window after acceptance and require a visible review, not an unnoticed edit.
4. Mark a vehicle unavailable and check that pending assignments are flagged for a person to resolve.
5. Complete the task while leaving an unresolved expense open: operational completion must not imply financial closure.