About the business
Jan Zijderhand Expeditie B.V. is a family-run transport business with over 100 years of history. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company specialises in steel transport: coils, plates, bars, and everything in between. They run custom-built trailers fitted with coil wells, chains, and specialist load-securing equipment, operated by drivers trained specifically for the work.
On top of this, 20% of their business is made up of general pallet work — but it’s the steel specialism that defines them.
The business is led and owned by Corstian Kraal and Derek de Leeuw. They both share a strong conviction that good systems and the data they provide are at the heart of good operations. Both have been in the business for around a decade, and that mindset has driven almost every major operational decision they’ve made since.
How they found Qargo
Jan Zijderhand Expeditie first encountered Qargo at ICT & Logistiek, a trade fair in the Netherlands, in 2024. The team were almost on their way home when a colleague pulled them back: “You have to look at Qargo.”
They stopped. They watched the demo. And they were immediately drawn in — particularly by Qargo’s AI capabilities and the freshness of the platform. “It looked very new. That’s something we pay attention to,” says Corstian.
The team shortlisted two systems following the event. “After running demos with both, the product quality, the strength of Qargo’s onboarding proposition, and the overall feel of working with the team made the decision clear.”
The challenge
Before switching to Qargo, Jan Zijderhand Expeditie were running a legacy administration platform that had TMS functionality bolted on.
The key limitation was that the system wasn’t cloud-based and resulted in periods of down time and workarounds.
Beyond that, the business had simply grown beyond what the platform was built for. Order intake was taking longer than it needed to — time the team couldn’t afford to keep spending.
The business also needed a system that new team members could pick up quickly — not one that required over a year to master.
We had to choose a system where automation takes over the repetitive work. That was important for us. — Corstian Kraal, Owner, Jan Zijderhand Expeditie B.V.
The solution
Jan Zijderhand went live with Qargo in mid-June 2025 — and from the start, the impact was clear. Invoicing, previously a two-day process, can now be as fast as one day. Order intake became significantly faster, freeing the planning team from repetitive data entry and giving them more time to focus on actual planning decisions.
The team uses Qargo Intelligence via the Outlook add-in to process incoming orders: it extracts details from emails and PDFs using AI, replacing the manual input they’d relied on before.
The board computer integration, fully live from January 2026, added a new layer of operational visibility. Drivers now log their arrival and departure at loading points directly through the app, with those status updates flowing in real time into Qargo. Fleet location, fuel usage, and tachograph data are all visible at a glance.
Another meaningful shift has come in how freight documents are handled. Since the integration went live, drivers photograph documents directly from their cab, and those documents are immediately available in Qargo — retrievable and sendable in under a minute.
In our long history, this is the first time we can do that. If a client asks for a freight document, we can send it in one minute, or they can retrieve it themselves directly from the Qargo portal. Before, we had to ask the driver to send a picture.
For a business built on the principle of doing exactly what they say they’ll do, that kind of speed and traceability changes everything.
Integrations
Jan Zijderhand Expeditie currently integrates Qargo with their board computer fleet management system, enabling real-time vehicle tracking, driver status updates, and digital document capture directly from the cab. A full integration with their accounting and billing platform is also in progress.
The onboarding experience
Onboarding was a key part of why Jan Zijderhand Expeditie chose Qargo in the first place. The availability of a sandbox environment — where the team could build out their client base, test settings, and get comfortable before go-live — was a decisive factor. “The other system didn’t offer that,” says Corstian. “If you say, from this day on, you’re working entirely with the new system, that’s a ton of work all at once. The sandbox meant we could spread it out.”
Having a Qargo colleague on-site for three days during the go-live period made the transition even smoother. Questions were answered immediately, configurations were adjusted in real time, and the team came away confident.
Corstian took a particularly active role in learning the platform — and found Qargo far more intuitive than their previous system. “With our old system, it took maybe a year or a year and a half before you really knew everything. Qargo is easy to use.”
The team also makes regular use of Qargo’s AI-powered support chat. “When you don’t know something, you ask, and the chatbot gives you the right article in five seconds.”
The results
✅ 50% reduction in invoicing time — from two full days down to one.
✅ Faster order intake — planners spend less time on data entry and more time on planning decisions.
✅ Digital CMR documents — freight documents retrievable and shareable in under a minute, for the first time in the company’s history.
✅ Real-time fleet visibility — driver status, vehicle location, and fuel data flowing directly from the board computer into Qargo.
✅ Reduced planner workload — same team size, significantly lower day-to-day pressure.
✅ Faster onboarding for new hires — Qargo is quick to learn, reducing ramp-up time for new planners.
What’s next
Jan Zijderhand Expeditie are tracking Qargo’s AI development closely.
“Qargo is constantly improving. We are really interested in what AI can do for the transport sector. I think Qargo might be using AI the best out of all the TMS systems.”
The full accounting integration is also on the roadmap, and with a system now running smoothly across planning, dispatch, and freight documentation, the foundations are in place for further development.
The system is very good at what it does. The AI, the help centre, the chat, the onboarding — these are the things I would highlight as benefits to anyone who is considering Qargo.
🚀 Want to see how Qargo can transform your transport operations? Book a demo today.