Mother Trucking Drives Low-Code Innovation in Mobile Crane Dispatch for SMEs

The concept for Mother Trucking was born in 2023 after a conversation between the founders – Kitti Bradley and Jason Teunissen – and their family, who have been in the heavy diesel industry for generations. The goal was straightforward yet impactful: to help haulage companies embrace technology and avoid being left behind.

“We believe every industry needs to go digital in the next five years or your company risks insolvency. 80% of the lifting and shifting business in the world consist of small to medium enterprises (SMEs) that don’t really have budget for bespoke software or an IT department,” Teunissen said.

Mother Trucking aimed to create a simple solution, leveraging their expertise to help SMEs embrace process automation and keep up with the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

The duo built their platform using the Mendix, leveraging the full potential of low-code. This allowed them to rapidly develop a system to streamline the complexities of the oversized haulage industry, from everyday construction to natural disaster recovery.

Pumping the Brakes on Pen-and-paper Processes

To realize their digital vision, Mother Trucking needed a development platform that could offer a simple, accessible interface for users reluctant to adopt digital solutions, while also providing a learning environment for the founders themselves. Low-code development was the ideal solution, allowing Mother Trucking to leverage visual development tools while helping the founders to continue building their technical skills.

Mendix was also the right tool for the team to use, as its cloud-native capability would allow drivers to access the application when offline –a common scenario when bringing equipment to new developers with limited cellular data.

“Cloud native platforms just make sense for trucking businesses, with the nature of the kind of work they do. It makes everything more accessible, so why not leverage it?” Teunissen added.

For Bradley and Teunissen, community was another core element of their vision. New Zealand, frequently affected by natural disasters such as tropical cyclones, provided an urgent backdrop for their mission.

In 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle, a powerful Category 3 storm, displaced 11,000 people, leaving the region without power, clean water, gas, or internet for three months. Emergency services faced immense challenges in coordinating their efforts without a cloud-native platform that hindered communication, making rescues and recovery operations difficult.

New Zealand’s geographic isolation, while appealing to travelers, also presents a unique challenge during such emergencies. The country’s remoteness makes rescue missions difficult, and as climate change exacerbates flooding, power outages, and landslides, the need for rapid response and adaptability becomes even more critical.

Mother Trucking was not just a way to enhance operational efficiency but also an opportunity to make a significant impact on New Zealanders. By simplifying and automating many of the complexities of heavy haulage, they hope to improve the agility and effectiveness of lifting and shifting projects when disasters strike.

Mobilizing Dispatch

Mother Trucking’s end-to-end solution is the first of its kind in the industry, allowing trucking companies to digitally manage their fleet and provide remote dispatch.

Development began in March 2023, with an initial plan to launch with one customer later that year. However, as the team engaged with more companies, they realized the broader impact their solution could have for the industry.

After gathering feedback and refining their vision, the team began developing version two of the platform in December 2023. This update simplifies managing fluctuating pricing structures, offering a flexible price book engine that automates accurate estimates, quotes, and invoices for companies.

“It makes their data accessible remotely, offline, and on-the-go, wherever they run their business,” he added.

In late 2024, Mother Trucking soft-launched its solution, enabling users to create profiles and input data to begin receiving actionable insights.

Mother Trucking’s latest application features include:

• Combo-box widget: A dropdown feature that presents a list of options for users to select from, enabling customers to filter and display data—such as financial details or truck routes—more efficiently.
• Open standards and open-source technologies: The platform uses widely accessible and open-source languages in Mendix, providing developers with the flexibility to extend the application’s capabilities.
• Google Tag Integration: Easily configurable, this feature enables users to get information about route information or find companies that are registered on Google Maps.
• Bizzomate Scheduler Module: A visual tool that enables customers to plan, execute, and track projects of all sizes. It organizes workloads at a glance, efficiently plans resources, and promotes collaboration.
• Xero Integration: Seamlessly connects Mother Trucking with Xero’s features, enabling seamless management and reconciling of operational tasks such as purchase orders and invoicing.

Community Keeps the Wheels Turning

At Mother Trucking, community, both low-code and local, is at the core of their creativity and innovation. Whether engaging with mentors, industry experts, or the 24/7 Mendix community, the team has access to a vast network of support and guidance.

“The forum is so friendly and there’s always someone online to help you. Plus, the access to the Mendix documentation means you can find what you need to advance your journey,” she continued.

Teunissen and Bradley also engage with their customers to iterate and improve their dispatch tool in a more collaborative, user-driven way. Their clients contribute to the public roadmap and can upvote other suggestions. Every platform update contains release notes that acknowledges the person who found the issue or proposed the solution.

“We believe that without crowd-sourcing the changes and updates to the application, we can’t truly know if it works for our customers,” Teunissen explained.

To gather customers’ valuable feedback, the founders created their own version of “KANBAN” in Figjam. The infinite whiteboard enables them to:

• Include screenshots of frustrations and features, moving them around based on progress.
• Scribble and annotate to solve problems quickly and efficiently for anyone using the application.
• Easily see urgent issues that need attention.
• Use visual explanations of concepts that clients struggle to understand in written format.
• Collaborate on whiteboards again, giving their clients a familiar, comforting feeing and bringing back the warmth of traditional teamwork.

“We use digital tools like Figma’s Infinite Canvas to get customer feedback, engaging them in our design process and collaborating with them to make sure the application is performing exactly as they need,” he said.

By consistently putting the customer front and center in its development, Mother Trucking ensures that its solutions are truly aligned with user needs. This engagement, combined with the flexibility of Mendix to easily adjust the application, creates a powerful foundation for continuous improvement.

Full Speed Ahead with Low-Code Development

To date, Mother Trucking has won three awards for its digital innovation, including one from the People’s Choice MOA Callaghan Innovation Accelerator in 2023. Teunissen and Bradley expect 2025 to be a groundbreaking year.

The duo will continue prioritizing Mother Trucking’s users and community needs. Key initiatives include a strong focus on accessibility, with voice to text, visual cues, and automation of calculations, further reducing the risk of human error.

The focus now is on getting the platform into the hands of small- to medium-sized lifting and shifting companies and continuing to improve the solution.

“In the next year, we hope to get more trucking companies to the other side of the digital curve, using our product to make them operate more efficiently, save money, and see fewer insolvencies,” Bradley said.

“You can build your first proof of concept in a cloud-based environment and, the next thing you know, you’re releasing it into the wild,” Teunissen concluded.