Cabo Express multiplies capacity by 5x without increasing headcount

The challenge

Cabo Express is a freight forwarder specializing in trade with Ceuta, Melilla, and North Africa. Its operations team, composed of 6 people, managed an average of 40 shipment files per week. Each file required the manual preparation of customs documentation: customs declarations, transit documents, certificates of origin, transport documents, and communications with port authorities.

The problem wasn’t the team’s competence. The problem was the volume of repetitive manual work that was strangling their capacity. A single file could require 2-3 hours of document preparation, copying data between systems, filling out forms, verifying tariff codes, and sending emails. With 40 files per week, the team lived in a permanent state of saturation.

SLAs were regularly breached. Not out of negligence, but due to lack of capacity. When volume spikes hit, delays cascaded like dominoes: a delayed file delays the shipment, a delayed shipment delays the delivery, a delayed delivery generates a claim. 15% of files suffered some type of avoidable delay related to document preparation.

The company needed to grow, but hiring more staff to do the same manual work was neither sustainable nor economically viable.

The solution

The Blueprint revealed that 80% of document preparation time was spent on tasks that could be automated: copying data from one system to another, filling in predictable fields, verifying information that already existed somewhere, and sending standard notifications.

We implemented two Engine layers:

Integration connected the systems that had previously operated as islands: the company’s ERP, the customs system, port platforms, carrier systems, and client communication channels. The integrations were designed with defined SLAs, continuous monitoring, and automatic retry mechanisms. When the Tax Authority doesn’t respond, the system retries. When a carrier doesn’t confirm, the system escalates. Without human intervention.

Orchestration was where the magic happened. We designed workflows that automate the complete file lifecycle: from the moment a transport request arrives until the invoice is generated. The system collects the order data, automatically prepares customs documentation with the correct tariff codes, generates transport documents, sends notifications to all parties involved, and schedules pickups with carriers.

Operators went from being document preparers to being exception managers. Their job is no longer to fill out forms. Their job is to resolve the cases the system can’t handle on its own, which are the ones that truly require human judgment.

The results

Team capacity multiplied by 5. With the same 6 people, Cabo Express now manages an average of 200 files per week. Not because they work longer hours, but because the system handles the repetitive work.

Manual documentation was reduced by 80%. Standard files are generated automatically. Only cases with exceptions or particularities require manual intervention, and even in those cases the system prepares a draft that the operator only needs to review and adjust.

SLA compliance went from 85% to 99%. By eliminating the manual preparation bottleneck, files flow without avoidable delays. Volume spikes no longer create queues because the system scales automatically.

Full ROI was achieved in 3 months. The Engine investment was recovered thanks to the additional volume the team can handle without incremental staffing costs.

Engine layers used

• Integration: Bidirectional connectivity with ERP, customs systems, port platforms, carriers, and client channels. Integration SLAs with monitoring and alerts.
• Orchestration: End-to-end automated transit file workflow. Automatic document generation, scheduled notifications, exception management with escalation.