Hi there MAG01,
Your requirements look pretty clear so far. Only missing thing is the shipment provider you want to integrate. If there's any documentation about shipment API that we'll work that'd make the whole flow crystal clear. Also, please correct me if I'm wrong, this looks like a cron script to be run continuously to handle shipment for orders.
If you want to target a specific magento version let me know about it, if not I'll use the latest stable release. I can start as soon as you award the project and mentioned example scripts. I expect to be done within 3 days at most, though it'll probably be ready within 2 days.
Thanks
Ibrahim