Last-mile and fleet operations where every failed delivery has an owner — through dispatch and partner carriers

Mi Retail is an operations center for carriers, couriers, freight and passenger transport operators and logistics providers. It does not plan routes or track vehicles; it manages the human work that appears around those systems. Every failed delivery, breakdown, damaged load, customer callback or handoff to a subcontracted carrier becomes an Operational Work Item with an owner, a state, a due time and evidence. Each person sees the part that is theirs: drivers their attempts to report, dispatch its open exceptions, customer care the customers waiting for an answer and the operations director only what needs a decision. The domain work — routing, loads, tracking, proof of delivery capture — runs in StoneOS apps or in the systems you already use.

No. Your transportation management system stays the system of record for shipments, routes, loads, rates and tracking events, and Mi Retail never keeps a second copy of them. What Mi Retail adds is the layer the TMS does not cover: the work that has to happen when a shipment needs a person. The TMS can tell you a delivery failed or a truck is late; Mi Retail manages who calls the customer, who approves a new route, which partner carrier takes it, what the case is waiting for and with which proof it can close. Keep your TMS; Mi Retail takes over where the work leaves it and records who did what, and when.

The driver reports the failed attempt with a photo and a GPS stamp, and dispatch opens a delivery exception that holds the whole case. From it, customer care receives a follow-up to confirm a new window and fix the address, so the second attempt does not fail for the same reason. If your own fleet has no capacity, the dispatch lead approves handing the redelivery to a partner carrier, and the reason is recorded. The carrier receives a derived work item, delivers and closes it with the proof of delivery. Dispatch then closes the exception with that evidence attached, and the shipment is marked delivered in the TMS.

Yes. Work between companies moves as derived work items, so both the shipper or logistics provider and its partner carrier need their own organization on Mi Retail. You pick the carrier from the directory and send the delivery, pickup or linehaul request; the carrier receives it in its own intake queue and assigns it to its own drivers. Each side keeps its privacy: you follow the state, the due time and the proof of delivery, but not the carrier’s internal routes, other customers or conversations. When the carrier completes its work item, you are notified and your exception can close. That is how subcontracted routes stop living in spreadsheets and screenshots.

Proof of delivery is the natural evidence that closes a delivery work item. The driver app or the carrier’s system captures the signature, the photo and the GPS stamp, and that proof is attached to the work item when it closes, together with the earlier attempts, the customer’s confirmation and any approval along the way. When a customer disputes a delivery or a claim for a damaged load arrives, the operator can show the whole trail in one place instead of asking drivers and carriers for screenshots. Control & Assurance lets an auditor or a key account review those trails, and the evidence holds up because it was captured while the work happened.

Each role gets its own surface on the same operation. A driver sees in My Work only what is theirs: the attempts to report, a vehicle inspection pending, a document to renew. Dispatch works from Team Operations, where open exceptions are ordered by due time, blocked items show their reason and work can be reassigned between drivers or handed to a carrier. Customer care sees the customers waiting for a window or a callback, with the case history already attached, so nobody has to ask dispatch what happened. Supervisors see load per person and what is at risk, and nobody needs access to the TMS configuration to take part.

An incident on the road becomes an incident work item linked to the vehicle, the trip and the shipments it affects. A breakdown can trigger child work items: a rescue vehicle for the load, a workshop visit for the truck and callbacks to the customers whose windows are now at risk. A damaged load opens an exception with photos from the driver and a review by the claims team. Each piece has its own owner and state, and a blocked item carries its reason — waiting for a tow, a part or an insurer — so dispatch sees exactly what is holding the trip. When everything is resolved, the incident closes with its evidence.

An operations director does not need to follow every parcel or trip. Operational Portfolio shows how each hub, region and service line is doing: open exceptions by age, redeliveries at risk, incidents in progress and partner carriers that keep missing their windows. Executive Operations surfaces only what needs a decision at that level, such as a costly claim, a recurring failure on the same route or a carrier whose performance should be reviewed. Each item carries its context and history, so the director can decide from Mi Retail instead of calling a meeting to rebuild the facts, and the decision is recorded for the next review.

Yes. The same model applies to any transport operation where a person has to act on something the system detected. For a passenger operator, a cancelled trip, a vehicle out of service, a lost-property report or a complaint about a driver becomes a work item with an owner and a due time. For a freight carrier, a missed pickup, a load refused at the dock, a detention dispute or a missing document for a border crossing is handled the same way. Trips, schedules and loads stay in the transport system; Mi Retail makes sure the people who must respond do so, and that the result is recorded.

Yes, it is the same product at both ends. A small courier with a few vans and one person dispatching gets a single Today view with the failed attempts, the customers waiting and the partner deliveries in progress, without fake hierarchies or empty teams. A network with many hubs, hundreds of drivers and dozens of subcontracted carriers distributes the same work items across dispatch desks, customer care, claims and regional management, each with its own surface, and exceptions escalate to the right level. What changes is how responsibilities are split, not the way the work is represented, so nothing has to be redesigned as the operation grows.

The Transportation edition of StoneOS brings apps for vehicles, drivers, routes, dispatch, trips, tracking and proof of service, and the Logistics edition adds shipments, loads, hubs, cross-docking, routing, last mile, proof of delivery, carrier management, exceptions and returns logistics. They come on top of the Business Core apps every team uses, such as Chat, Calendar, Drive, People and Sheets. Those apps keep the depth of each domain. Mi Retail is where the work they generate meets the people who must act on it: a failed delivery, a carrier handoff or a return that needs approval lands as a work item in the right queue. If you keep your current TMS, it stays the record.

Start with the exception that costs you the most follow-up — usually failed deliveries or routes handed to subcontractors — instead of modeling the whole network. Create a dispatch workspace, invite the dispatchers, customer care and a few drivers, and open the next failed deliveries as work items with an owner and a due time. Invite one partner carrier to its own organization so the first handoff moves as a derived work item. Within a few weeks you will see where parcels wait and which routes fail repeatedly. Then connect the TMS you already use and, when it fits, add the StoneOS Transportation or Logistics edition apps. Mi Retail is free to start.