The threshold
Nautes Logistics ran on a back-office written in 2014. Billing worked. Reports worked. But every business change took two weeks of dev, and the ops team spent four hours a day copying data between three screens.
The client didn't want a rebuild for the sake of rebuilding. They wanted the same team to handle three times the volume, without hiring.
The approach
We started with a code read alongside the CTO and the head of operations. Two findings:
- The business engine (tariff calculation, document validation) was sound. Don't touch.
- The UI layer and the EDI integration module were the pain points.
Call: replace those two layers, keep the engine, wire them through a stable internal API.
The work
- Week 1–2. Mapping the flows, defining the API contract between the old engine and the new UI. Setting up the dual-run (old system keeps running, new one reads in read-only mode).
- Week 3–4. Building the new UI (Next.js + Postgres reads). One volunteer operator adopted it for 5 days, with daily feedback and adjustments.
- Week 5. Write-side cutover in batches — one document type at a time, with rollback ready.
- Week 6. Decommissioning the old front. The business engine never moved.
What changed
"We knew we had to modernize. We didn't know we could do it without losing a day of operations." — Aïcha, head of operations
Entry time for a document went from 11 minutes to 3.5. Volume per operator tripled without adding staff. Zero business interruption across the 6 weeks.
→ TRANSFORMER in its exact intent: cross an operational threshold without breaking what works.