Moving Forward: How a South Asian Logistics Firm Streamlined Operations using Kanbanchi as a Logistics Project Management Software

Logistics in South Asia is a high-stakes balancing act. Monsoon rains disrupt routes, multi-language carrier networks create communication gaps, and e-commerce growth demands faster, more reliable deliveries – all while mid-size firms struggle to afford enterprise tools. For Siam Star Shipping, a medium-sized provider operating across Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, these challenges were costing them 22% of freight shipments delayed, 15% of warehouse orders picked late, and 8+ hours weekly spent reconciling manual spreadsheets. This case study explores how Siam Star transformed its operations using Kanbanchi as logistics project management software.

Siam Star Shipping: Serving South Asia’s E-Commerce Boom

Siam Star Shipping was founded in 2018 to fill a gap in South Asia’s logistics market: mid-size e-commerce brands needed reliable, affordable shipping across Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia without the price tag of enterprise firms like DHL or FedEx.

Size and Team: 85 employees across three offices (Bangkok HQ, Ho Chi Minh City satellite, Phnom Penh depot) and one Bangkok warehouse.

Roles include:

• 10 carrier coordinators (managing 28 local carriers)
• 25 drivers (last-mile delivery in Thailand/Vietnam)
• 12 warehouse staff (picking, packing, inventory)
• 8 operations managers (overseeing regional workflows)
• 30 admin/back-office staff (customs, client communication, billing)

Services: Freight forwarding (sea/land), last-mile delivery, warehouse storage, and customs clearance, specializing in e-commerce (60% of clients) and FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods, 40% of clients).

Regional Focus: Thailand (70% of business), Vietnam (20%), Cambodia (10%). Plans to expand to Malaysia in 2026.

Unique Challenges: Monsoon seasons (June-October) disrupting land routes, multi-language carrier networks, varying customs regulations (e.g., Vietnam requires additional import docs for electronics), and spotty internet in rural areas.

By 2024, their client base had grown 40%, but their manual processes couldn’t keep up. “We were turning down clients because we couldn’t guarantee on-time deliveries,” said their founder. “We needed logistics project management software that could handle South Asia’s chaos. I tried a lot of tools built for Western markets, but we needed something we could customize.”

Logistics Pain Points in South Asia: Monsoons, Carriers, and Chaos

Before Kanbanchi, Siam Star workflows were held together by Excel spreadsheets, WhatsApp messages, and paper delivery notes. Systems that collapsed under the pressure of South Asia’s logistics. Here’s how their most significant pain points played out daily.

1. Freight Coordination Chaos: Delays, Miscommunication, and Monsoons

Siam Star Shipping works with 28 local carriers (trucking, sea freight, and last-mile delivery) across three countries. Each has different languages (Thai, Vietnamese, Khmer), schedules, and reliability. Without centralized freight coordination project management, shipments fell through the cracks. During Thailand’s 2024 monsoon season:

• A 500-unit e-commerce order from Bangkok to Chiang Mai was delayed by three days after the carrier’s truck became stuck in flooding. Siam Star only found out when the client complained.
• A sea freight shipment to Ho Chi Minh City arrived one week late because the carrier missed a customs deadline. The company failed to track progress on documentation.

Carrier coordinator Nok Sinthu recalled: “I used to spend four hours daily calling carriers to check statuses. Half the time, they didn’t answer, or I couldn’t explain the issue in their language. By the time we resolved it, the client was angry.”

2. Warehouse Operations: Slow, Error-Prone Picking

Siam Star Shipping’s Bangkok warehouse, which serves 12 e-commerce clients, used paper checklists for order picking, packing, and inventory management. As a result, 15% of orders were picked late, and 8% had missing items. During peak season (November-December 2024):

• A 300-unit electronics order for a Cambodian client was missing 20 chargers. It was discovered only when the client opened the shipment.
• Warehouse staff spent 6 hours per week manually counting inventory, resulting in stockouts of popular items like phone cases. Also, it delayed 10+ deliveries.

Warehouse supervisor Arun Thongdee said, “We could have five staff working on the same order because the checklist didn’t assign tasks. It was chaos, especially when we had more than a hundred orders a day.”

3. Shipping Workflow Gaps: Disjointed Documentation

Customs and shipping documents (invoices, packing lists, import permits) were stored in three places: email attachments, a shared Google Drive folder, and physical files. When a carrier needed a permit for a Vietnam-bound shipment, Siam Star Shipping staff could spend hours searching for the document. That could delay the truck’s departure by 2-3 hours.

Operations manager Sudpawana Kosasang summed it up: “We didn’t have a single source of truth. Every process relied on someone remembering where a file was or who to call. For logistics, that’s a disaster.”

Software Search: Why Kanbanchi Beats Enterprise Tools for Mid-Size Logistics

Siam Star spent three months testing three top options: SAP Logistics (enterprise), Blue Yonder (warehouse-focused), and Kanbanchi. They scored each tool on four logistics-critical criteria:

1. Ease of use for non-technical staff: drivers and warehouse workers (many with limited tech experience) needed to update tasks quickly.
2. End-to-end visibility: track freight from warehouse to delivery, including carrier status and customs docs.
3. Affordability: enterprise tools cost $500+/user/month, which is too expensive for a mid-size firm.

Kanbanchi interface showcasing the Kanban board

Here’s why Kanbanchi won:

1. SAP Logistics: too Complex, too Costly

SAP is a leader in enterprise logistics, but it was overkill for Siam Star Shipping.

What worked: Robust freight tracking and customs integration.

What failed: The interface required hours of training, and warehouse staff and drivers couldn’t navigate it. It also costs 650 per user/month (55,250 monthly for 85 staff), which was nearly 15% of Siam Star’s revenue.

Dealbreaker: No mobile app, useless for drivers and warehouse workers.

2. Blue Yonder: Great for Warehouses, Bad for Freight

Blue Yonder excels at warehouse management, but it ignored Siam Star’s biggest pain: freight coordination.

What worked: Streamlined order picking and inventory tracking.

What failed: No way to track carrier shipments or optimize driver routes.

Dealbreaker: No Google Workspace integration. They all use Gmail for carrier communication and Google Drive for docs, so staff would have to switch between tools.

3. Kanbanchi: Just about Right!

Kanbanchi checked every box and solved South Asia-specific challenges:

Ease of use: Drivers and warehouse staff learned the mobile app in 15 minutes. The visual boards (like physical checklists, but digital) felt familiar to non-technical teams.

End-to-end visibility: One platform for freight coordination, project management, warehouse operations, task tracking, and transportation task management tools. No more switching between spreadsheets.

Affordability: Kanbanchi’s Premium Plan costs $16.99 per user/month, and the Professional Plan $41.99 per user/month, and the price even goes down when you have more users. So, having separate plans for their different staff levels brought the cost down to $1995.65 per month for 85 staff. 28x cheaper than SAP!

Mobile app: Drivers can update delivery statuses in real-time.

Google Workspace integration: Customs documents stored in Google Drive attach directly to freight cards. Carriers can access them with one click, no more emailing files.

“We didn’t need a tool that did a thousand things; we just needed one that did four things really well: track freight, manage warehouses, share documents, and work on mobile. Kanbanchi delivered that,” summarizes the founder of Siam Star Shipping.

Rolling Out Kanbanchi: From Bangkok HQ to Chiang Mai Warehouses

Siam Star Shipping knew a rushed rollout would fail, especially with staff across three countries and varying tech skills. They used a 6-week phased plan, focused on “regional relevance” (e.g., monsoon-specific features) and “role-specific training” (drivers learned mobile app; managers learned Gantt charts).

Phase 1: Boards Build for South Asian Logistics

The HQ team (Sudpawana, Nok, Arun) worked with Kanbanchi support to create four core boards tailored to their unique workflows:

1. Freight Coordination Board

Columns:​

Crucial properties:​

2. Warehouse Operations Board

Columns:

• Order Received: Client orders waiting to be picked (e.g., “Cambodia e-commerce: 300 phone cases”).
• Picking In Progress: Staff actively picking items (assigned to specific workers).
• Packing: Orders being packed (with “Priority”: High/Normal).
• Ready for Shipment: Packed orders waiting for a carrier.
• Shipped: Orders dispatched to carriers.

Crucial properties:​

• Color label: Warehouse bin number (e.g., “A12-3”) to speed up picking.
• Due date with the time: Client cutoff time

3. Transportation Task Management Board

Columns:

• Route Assigned: Drivers with daily delivery lists (e.g., “Phra: 8 Bangkok stops”).
• In Progress: Drivers en route (with real-time status updates).
• Delayed: Stops missed due to traffic/weather (reason in comments).
• Completed Deliveries: Stops finished for the day.
• Return to Depot: Drivers heading back after routes.
• Fuel log: Driver input for daily fuel usage (to track costs).

Crucial properties:

• Card description: Link to Google Maps with pre-planned stops (ordered by proximity).
• Checklists: Stops drivers can check as deliveries are delivered in real time.

4. Shipping Workflow Board

Columns:

• Preparation: Customs documents being created (e.g., “Packing list for Vietnam shipment”).
• Approved: Documents verified by customs.
• Carrier Ready: Documents shared with carriers, shipment ready to load.
• In Transit: Linked to the Freight Coordination Board for real-time tracking.
• Archived: Documents stored for future reference (required by South Asian customs for 1 year).

The archiving option became a significant bonus for the HQ team working with the documents, because archiving unnecessary cards sped up their active board and, at the same time, left space for the papers they might need to find quickly during various checks.

Phase 2: HQ & Manager Training

15 managers and coordinators were trained in Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, and Phnom Penh on advanced features focused on solving their daily pain points:

• Day 1: Gantt charts for freight timelines. The team mapped a Bangkok-to-Cambodia shipment, setting dependencies (e.g., “Customs clearance must finish before the carrier picks up”).
• Day 2: Automation for alerts. Nok set up notifications: if a carrier marks a shipment “Delayed,” she gets a notification.
• Day 3: Mobile app testing. Managers tested the app in Bangkok to ensure drivers could update statuses.

The team created a “Regional Trainer Kit” with:

• 5-minute videos in Thai/Vietnamese/Khmer (for local staff).
• A checklist for driver training (focus on real-time updates).
• A “Monsoon Playbook” (how to reroute shipments using Kanbanchi).

Phase 3: Frontline Staff Onboarding

Training for drivers, warehouse staff, and carriers focused on the basic, actionable steps.

Drivers trained on the mobile app to:

• View assigned routes with optimized stops.
• Mark deliveries “Completed”.
• Flag delays (e.g., “Monsoon road closure”) in the comments.

Driver Phra said, “I used to carry a notebook with delivery addresses. Now I open the app, and the route is there.”​

Warehouse staff were trained to:

• View assigned picking tasks with bin locations.
• Mark items “Picked” to avoid duplicates.
• Flag inventory shortages (e.g., “No more phone cases in A12-3”).

Carriers (given a simplified link to the card) were trained to:

• View shipment details.
• Access customs documents

Phase 4: Optimization

Siam Star Shipping collected feedback from its staff and made some adjustments. For example, added a “Monsoon Reroute” column to the Transportation Board: Drivers can flag routes with floods, and managers reassign stops in 5 minutes. In six weeks, 92% of staff were using Kanbanchi daily, exceeding their 85% goal.

Kanbanchi Features That Transformed Logistics Workflows

Kanbanchi’s success at Siam Star wasn’t just about “using a tool”; it was about using features that solved South Asia’s logistics pain points. Below are the tools that made the most significant impact:

1. Visual Boards for Warehouse Operations Task Tracking Cut Picking Time by 28%

The Warehouse Operations Board replaced paper checklists, letting staff see task ownership and progress in real time. For example:

• Arun, the warehouse supervisor, logs in at 8 AM and sees “Picking In Progress” tasks assigned to 5 staff. No more walking through the warehouse to check statuses.
• A staff member marks “300 phone cases” as “Picked,” and the board automatically moves the task to “Packing,” eliminating the need for manual updates.

Arun said, “We used to have two staff working on the same order because no one knew who was assigned. Now, every task has a name. Picking time dropped from 4 hours to 2.9 hours per 100 orders.”

2. Gantt Charts for Freight Coordination Project Management Reduced Delays by 35%

• Kanbanchi’s Gantt view lets Siam Star Shipping map freight timelines and spot delays early. During the 2025 monsoon season:
• The team planned a Bangkok-to-Chiang Mai shipment, setting a “Carrier Pickup” deadline of June 10 and a “Delivery” deadline of June 12.
• On June 9, the Gantt chart showed the carrier hadn’t confirmed pickup. Nok called them, found their truck stuck in the floods, and reassigned a backup carrier.

The shipment arrived on time. “Gantt charts turned reacting to delays into preventing them,” Nok said.

3. Mobile App for Transportation Task Management Tools Lowered Fuel Costs by 22%

The mobile app and route optimization transformed driver workflows. Driver Phra’s daily route used to take 8 hours; now it takes 6.

• He opens the app in the morning and sees stops ordered by proximity (e.g., first stop in downtown Bangkok, next 2 in the same neighborhood).
• He marks each delivery “Completed” while waiting at a red light.
• If he hits monsoon traffic, he adds a comment to his card, and the app notifies the supervisor. He can then proceed to the next delivery and be sure the supervisor will reroute his deliveries within minutes.

Fuel costs dropped from 800 THB/week per driver to 624 THB/week, saving Siam Star 45,600 THB annually across 25 drivers.

4. Google Workspace Integration for Shipping Workflow Management Software: Cut Doc Time by 70%

Customs documents critical in South Asia are now attached directly to freight cards. When a carrier needs a Vietnamese import permit:

• They click the attachment on the card they were shared, even without a Kanbanchi subscription.
• The permit opens in Google Drive, no more emailing files or searching folders.

Sudpawana said, “We used to spend two hours per shipment finding docs. Now it’s five minutes. For 50 shipments a week, that’s hours saved. Time we use to serve more clients.”

5. Labels and Tags for Weather and Language Helped to Avoid South Asia-Specific Headaches

The “Weather Alert” labels and “Carrier Language” tags solved two of Siam Star’s biggest regional challenges:

• During monsoons, managers filter the Freight Board by “Monsoon Risk” and reroute shipments to avoid flooded roads.
• Coordinators filter by “Carrier Language” to assign Thai-speaking staff to Thai carriers, eliminating miscommunication.

Siam Star’s founder said, “Enterprise tools don’t care about monsoons or multi-language carriers. Kanbanchi let us build those needs into the system, something no other tool offered us.”

TRY KANBANCHI FOR YOUR TEAM NOW

Outcomes & Metrics: Tangible Wins for Freight, Warehouses, and Fleets

Siam Star tracked eight key metrics for 6 months after launching Kanbanchi, with results that transformed their bottom line and client satisfaction:​

The Business Impact

Cost Savings:

• 45,600 THB  annually in fuel costs
• 768,000 THB in warehouse labor costs (faster picking) = 2,227,200 THB total savings, enough to hire three new carrier coordinators
• Client Growth: 25% more clients in 6 months (from 40 to 50) because of improved on-time delivery rates.
• Team Morale: 87% of staff reported “less stress” in a post-Kanbanchi survey. Driver turnover dropped from 15% to 5%.

Sudpawana said, “We used to be known for delays. Now, clients call us the reliable ones. We turned our biggest weaknesses into strengths.”

Staff Voices: Drivers, Coordinators, and Managers Share Insights

Kanbanchi’s impact wasn’t just about numbers; it changed how Siam Star’s team worked and how they felt about their jobs. Here’s what they had to say:

Nok Sinthu, Carrier Coordinator (Bangkok): “Before Kanbanchi, I’d cry on my way to work because I knew I’d spend all day chasing carriers. Now I log in, see which shipments need updates, and send a quick message. No more endless calls. Last week, a carrier marked a shipment ‘Delayed’ at 9 AM, and I had a backup carrier assigned by 9:15 AM. The client never even knew there was a problem. That’s never happened before.”

Arun Thongdee, Warehouse Supervisor (Bangkok): “The warehouse used to be loud: staff arguing over who was picking what, clients calling to ask about orders. Now it’s quiet. Everyone has a task on the board and knows what to do. Last month, we processed 1,200 orders in 3 days (peak season) with no overtime. That’s a miracle for us.”

Phra Sorn, Driver (Thailand): “I’ve been a driver for 10 years, and I’ve never used a tool that makes my job easier. The app tells me where to go, in what order, and even lets me mark deliveries as soon as I complete them. I used to get home at 8 PM. Now I’m home by 6 PM to see my kids. That’s worth more than any raise.”

Mai Nguyen, Carrier Coordinator (Ho Chi Minh City): “Vietnamese carriers often don’t speak English, so miscommunication was a daily problem. Now the Freight Board has Vietnamese labels, and I assign Vietnamese-speaking staff to those carriers. Last week, a carrier needed a customs permit. They clicked the link on the board and had it in 2 minutes. No more ‘lost in translation’ issues.”

Founder of Siam Star Shipping: “We started Siam Star Shipping because we wanted to show that mid-size logistics firms in South Asia could compete with big players. Kanbanchi made that possible. We’re growing. Next year, we’re expanding to Malaysia, and I have zero doubt Kanbanchi will scale with us.”

Common Questions About Kanbanchi as Logistics Project Management Software

Can Kanbanchi track multi-carrier shipments across South Asia?

Yes. Siam Star Shipping tracks 28 carriers across Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia using the Freight Coordination Board. The card properties for “Carrier Name,” “Country,” and “Doc Status” let you monitor every step from warehouse pickup to final delivery. You can filter by carrier, country, or status to spot bottlenecks.

Does Kanbanchi have a mobile app?

Absolutely. The app lets drivers see routes, mark deliveries, and flag delays.

Can Kanbanchi integrate with customs documentation tools?

While Kanbanchi doesn’t integrate directly with customs platforms (e.g., Thailand’s Customs Department portal), it integrates seamlessly with Google Drive or SharePoint, where most logistics firms store customs documents. Carriers and staff can access them via attachment on the Kanbanchi card.

How much does Kanbanchi cost for a mid-size logistics firm?

Most of the mid-size businesses use a mix of the Professional and Premium plans. Prices are customized and decrease as you add more users, starting at two users. You can check for yourself on our pricing page, which works as a calculator.

Can Kanbanchi handle warehouse inventory tracking?

Yes. The Warehouse Operations Board’s “Inventory Location” label lets staff track stock by bin number, and the “Stockout” label alerts managers when items are low. Siam Star Shipping reduced inventory stockouts by 58% using this feature. Critical for e-commerce clients who can’t afford delays.