Co-authored by
Adam Kasperowicz ─ CIO, VAN group
The VAN group successfully enhanced its Transportation Management System (TMS) with Oracle APEX to achieve improved logistics and transportation efficiency, along with better application integration.
Business challenges
Founded in 1989, the European VAN group combines companies operating in international and domestic forwarding, warehousing services, contract logistics across 40 locations, mainly in Poland.
Early in its operations, the VAN group encountered difficulties when implementing its Transportation Management System (TMS) using Oracle Forms 6i due to integration issues with other new applications and a lack of detailed technical documentation, making management and maintenance challenging. Faced with growing digital competition, the VAN group required a flexible, scalable platform because the existing TMS failed to meet the rising needs, preventing the company from implementing innovative solutions while maintaining platform integration with both internal and external systems.
Why did VAN group choose Oracle APEX?
The company chose Oracle APEX due to its capability to provide expandable, extensible features that work well with its current system components.
Oracle APEX was adopted to modernize the VAN group’s Transportation Management System due to its ability to offer a fast, low-code solution that fits with the company’s existing technology systems, such as PL/SQL—allowing the group to retain its back-end code and simplify the transition process from its previous system without the need for a complete rebuild.
APEX provided the VAN group with the necessary scalability to process more data and users at the same time while maintaining system performance as their operations expanded in size. The platform gave users the ability to change and adapt their TMS according to new business requirements, which other market solutions did not offer. The features of Oracle APEX stood out as the most user-friendly option when compared to other available choices.
“APEX drives our digital transformation, enabling seamless integration with logistics platforms. By applying machine learning, we can predict prices with greater accuracy using both historical and external data.”
— Adam Kasperowicz, CIO, VAN group
Results
The transition from Forms 6i to Oracle APEX enabled the VAN group to retain its existing PL/SQL procedures, which avoided building the entire system from scratch, thus allowing the total modernization of the company’s Transportation Management System.
Furthermore, through Oracle APEX, the VAN group kept its existing PL/SQL procedures and established a modern Transportation Management System, which enhanced data integration and system scalability and achieved major cost reductions in operational expenses.
Using APEX on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, the VAN group was able to accommodate the growing volume of data and users without any performance issues due to the scalable architecture that allowed for predictable system performance, thus matching its expanding logistics requirements. The improvement in the VAN group’s service provision resulted in greater customer satisfaction, which made the company more competitive in the market.
Qualitative benefits included increased employee productivity, with faster and more reliable access to information, which improved decision-making and cross-departmental collaboration. APEX enabled the developer teams to create custom applications that met changing business requirements for less than the price of other market solutions. In the future, the VAN group plans to integrate OCI AI services with its Service Desk application. The APEX project will use OCI AI services to verify user requests and build a chatbot service.
About the customer
VAN group is a leading Polish forwarding company established in 1989. It specializes in innovative logistics solutions and handles thousands of domestic and international shipments. vancargo.com
About the partner
The project was carried out in cooperation with Pretius, which helped the VAN group learn and implement Oracle APEX. Pretius facilitated the transition from the old system (Forms 6i) to APEX and supported the VAN group’s successful digitization. pretius.com
Product list
Oracle APEX, Oracle Database, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)