BTT cuts order setup from hours to minutes

BTT Multimodal Container Solutions connects the seaports of Rotterdam and Antwerp with the European hinterland by water, rail, and road. Its terminals in Tilburg, Bergen op Zoom, and Geleen bring container handling, intermodal transport, and warehousing together in one network. Behind that physical operation runs an equally important flow of customer orders and updates.

That order flow is far from uniform. BTT processes long Excel lists containing up to 1,000 orders, as well as changes, order synchronisation, different customer formats, and a significant number of customer flows. Each variation has to be interpreted correctly before the information is usable in the operation.

Setting up customer orders previously took several hours. The team had to organise and check large amounts of information, while updates and different formats could change the process again. Growth therefore depended on additional manual capacity and limited how quickly new customer flows could be connected.

The challenge was not simply to read an Excel file faster. BTT wanted to make the full intake process more scalable: process large order volumes, incorporate changes, and turn different formats into one consistent operational outcome.

BTT chose Chainfill to automate this order intake further. Together with the operational team, Chainfill built a workflow that turns large order lists, updates, and different formats into a consistent structure. Rather than solving a single file type, this creates a repeatable route for multiple customer flows.

BTT’s process knowledge was essential. The team identified which information is required, how updates need to be handled, and where an exception should deliberately receive human attention. Chainfill translated that knowledge into checks and workflow steps in the platform.

The collaboration was deliberately pragmatic. Examples from daily operations were discussed quickly and turned into concrete improvements. This enabled the implementation not only to go live, but also to keep fitting the operation as new formats and customer flows appeared.

The difference is visible in the time required to set up customer orders. According to Ruben Diederen, the process went from several hours to a few minutes. That improvement means more than less data-entry work: it also allows BTT to absorb growth without increasing administrative setup work at the same rate.

The effect is also visible in current production. During the past 30 days, the active BTT environment processed 708 documents; rounded to the nearest percentage point, 93% completed processing without a user edit. The time saving described by the customer is therefore supported by a recent measurement from the daily workflow.

BTT and Chainfill continue building after the go-live. Every new customer flow adds knowledge that makes the workflow more consistent and broadly usable while the operational team retains control over exceptions.