Theresa Cummins is a perfect partner in the Boomerang Box Project. After all, it's her job to keep an eagle eye on all APL's shipping activities in Australia!

Theresa works for APL at its Fremantle, Australia office. Her title is Documentation/Customer Support Supervisor. What that means is that Theresa is responsible for helping customers who are shipping goods to any of the Australian ports APL serves: Fremantle, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, or Adelaide.

Not that long ago, someone with Theresa's job would have been able to work with customers at only one port. But, with the help of computers, Theresa can help manage the flow of goods in and out of five different ports that are scattered all over Australia.

Every container load that arrives at a port needs to have a whole sheaf of paperwork. That paperwork or documentation tells about what is in the container, where it has come from, where it is going, and who is responsible for it. The documentation has to be delivered to the different organizations that are in charge of trade in Australia: the Australian Customs Authorities, the Australian Quarantine Authorities, and, of course, the individual ports where the containers are shipped. All this paperwork used to be hand-delivered; but now Theresa and her coworkers send it by computer. And it's Theresa's job to make sure it gets to all the right people - for every APL shipment into Australia. As you can imagine, she spends a lot of time at her computer!

What does Theresa do when a customer in Adelaide needs to get some bottles delivered extra fast? What if the bottles are already on a ship halfway around the world and the customer wants them faster than the ship will get them there? Download the case study and help Theresa take the Wallaby Express to Australia!