ATOM, Automated Trailer Order Management Enables Scalable, Real-Time Trailer Planning and Execution

The challenge

Prior to Everest's involvement with a well-known furniture retailer relied on a legacy IBM i/AS400-based system for trailer planning that required extensive manual decision-making from both DC operations teams and store associates. Orders were prioritized and assigned through a combination of static rules and significant human judgment, pulling store teams away from serving customers and into the logistics process. The result was fragmented workflows, limited visibility into future trailer loads, and a persistent risk of the wrong merchandise arriving at stores which causes missed customer delivery commitments.

The absence of a centralized orchestration layer led to lack of real-time synchronization between systems. Operational teams had to manually manage prioritization, capacity constraints, and last-minute changes. As order volumes increased, these limitations caused sub-optimal trailer utilization, higher dock intervention, delays in execution, and increased operational overhead.

Additionally, there was limited real-time visibility into order-to-trailer mapping, poor synchronization between systems, and no automated prioritization mechanisms. As order volumes grew, these constraints compounded, causing sub-optimal trailer utilization, delayed customer deliveries, and an over-reliance on human decision-making that scaled poorly and introduced unnecessary risk.

What Everest delivered

ATOM began as Everest Technologies' own thought leadership initiative. The Everest team conceived, designed, and built the platform independently, then demonstrated its capabilities to our customer's leadership, who recognized its potential and engaged Everest to implement it as their production solution. ATOM was architected as a native extension of Manhattan Active® Omni (MAO), allowing the legacy IBM i/AS400-based system to be fully retired and replaced with a modern, cloud-native orchestration layer between order management and warehouse execution. The platform automates the trailer build process end-to-end, ensuring the right merchandise is loaded on every truck dispatched from the DC to stores, so customers receive their furniture on time, every time, without store associates having to manage the process manually.

Solution components

• 01
  Automated trailer order management platform (ATOM)

  • Enabled automated order-to-trailer assignment across a distributed retail network
  • Reduced manual planning effort and improved utilization
• 02
  Rule-based optimization engine

  • Integrated with Manhattan Active® Omni (OMS)
  • Supported routing, capacity, and prioritization logic
• 03
  Centralized orchestration layer

  • Enabled real-time ingestion of order data
  • Provided bi-directional synchronization between OMS and execution systems
• 04
  Core platform capabilities

  • Dynamic load sequencing and capacity optimization
  • Day capping engine based on cube and stop thresholds
  • Exception handling with manual override (Priority 0 mode)
  • Centralized dashboards, reporting, and audit tracking
• 05
  Microservices-based architecture

  • Decomposed monolithic system into services including Auto Assignment, Day Capping, WebApp, and Reporting
  • Enabled scalable, high-volume processing
• 06
  Legacy system integration

  • Integrated with IBM i / AS400 through middleware
  • Ensured reliable data synchronization across systems