By industry
AI & Automation for Logistics & Supply Chain
Exceptions handled before anyone calls to complain
We design around
- DPDP Act 2023
- Customs documentation requirements
- GST e-way bill compliance
- ISO 27001
- 88%
- Shipping documents processed automatically
- 3-6%
- Freight spend recovered via invoice audit
- 70%
- Track-and-trace enquiries auto-resolved
Typical in year one on unaudited volume
What we hear
The problems that bring people to us
If several of these describe your week, there is almost certainly something worth automating.
- Shipping documents keyed in manually at every handoff
- Exceptions discovered when the customer calls
- Track-and-trace enquiries consuming the operations team
- Freight invoices audited by sampling, so overcharges pass
- Every partner integration is a bespoke file format
What we build
Where automation pays off in logistics & supply chain
Document automation across the chain
Bills of lading, airway bills, packing lists, customs paperwork and delivery notes extracted, validated and posted. Removes the re-keying that happens at every handoff and the errors it introduces.
Proactive exception detection
Monitor milestones against plan and flag deviations as they happen, with the case assembled and the customer notified. Being told about a delay is very different from discovering one.
Track-and-trace automation
Status enquiries answered automatically across carrier systems, in the customer's channel. Removes a large share of inbound volume that carries no decision.
Freight invoice audit
Every invoice checked against contracted rates, accessorials and actual service, not a sample. Recovery typically pays for the engagement.
Partner integration layer
One normalisation layer for the EDI, CSV, API and emailed-spreadsheet formats your partners insist on, so onboarding a new one stops being a project.
Logistics runs on documents
Every handoff generates paperwork, and at every handoff someone re-keys it. The errors compound: a wrong weight becomes a wrong rate becomes a disputed invoice becomes a phone call three weeks later.
Automating document handling across the chain is unglamorous and it is where the largest, most reliable savings are. It also improves data quality for everything downstream, which is what makes the second and third automations cheap.
Exceptions are the real product
Customers do not call because a shipment arrived. They call because it did not, and because nobody told them.
Monitoring milestones against plan and surfacing deviations as they occur changes the operational posture entirely — from answering complaints to sending notifications. The engineering is straightforward; the value is disproportionate.
What we will not overpromise
Predictive ETAs. The demos are impressive and the data requirements are real — consistent, labelled historical movement data at volume, which most operators do not have yet. We will build the deviation detection that delivers most of the operational value now, and tell you honestly what would need to be true before prediction is worth attempting.
Integration brittleness, priced honestly
Logistics has a wider spread of integration quality than any sector we work in. The same client will have a clean REST API to one carrier, an SFTP drop of fixed-width files from another, and a third that expects someone to log into a portal.
Those are not equivalent, and pricing them as though they are is how engagements go wrong. Our rule is to state the expected maintenance burden per integration path up front:
API integrations are close to build-once. Versioned, documented, and they usually warn you before breaking.
EDI and scheduled file feeds are stable but fail quietly. The monitoring matters more than the parser — a feed that stops arriving looks identical to a feed with no new records.
Emailed spreadsheets are where AI genuinely earns its place, because the column order changes and a rigid parser cannot cope. Expect ongoing tuning as partners drift.
Portal scraping is the brittle one. We build it when there is no alternative, we monitor it closely, and we budget maintenance against it rather than pretending it is free.
Where the work overlaps other sectors
Document handling across the chain is document processing at volume, with more partner formats than most. Track-and-trace deflection is support automation — the same engineering, applied to enquiries that carry no decision. Invoice audit and the reporting layer sit in back-office automation.
If you also run a direct-to-consumer channel, the peak-readiness work described under retail and eCommerce applies to your fulfilment systems on the same sale days.
FAQ
Questions we get asked
Our partners send data in every format imaginable. Can that be normalised?
That is exactly the job, and it is where AI genuinely helps — a model handles the emailed spreadsheet with a different column order each time, which a rigid parser cannot. Structured feeds still go through deterministic parsing, because it is cheaper and more reliable where the format holds.
Does invoice audit really pay for itself?
On unaudited freight volume, usually yes and often quickly. Recovery of 3-6% is typical in the first year, because sampling-based audit misses most of the small systematic overcharges. We will estimate against your actual invoice volume before you commit.
Can you predict delays?
We can flag deviations from plan reliably and early, which is where the operational value is. Genuine predictive ETA modelling needs consistent historical data most operators do not yet have — we will say so rather than sell a model that cannot be trained.
How do you handle systems with no API?
Carrier portals, emailed reports and file drops all get handled, and we are explicit that these paths are more brittle than an API. Where a partner has an API and simply has not enabled it, the cheapest fix is often the commercial conversation rather than the engineering one.
What does a first engagement cost and how long does it take?
Two weeks to audit document volumes, exception rates and invoice spend, then four weeks to put one thing into production. Freight invoice audit is the usual first choice because the recovery is measurable within a quarter and frequently covers the build. Document extraction across the chain is the larger prize but takes longer to reach full coverage, because each document type and each partner format is incremental work.
What happens when a carrier changes their portal?
Something breaks, and you should plan for that rather than be surprised by it. Portal scraping is the most brittle integration we build and we say so before building it. We mitigate with monitoring that detects a broken extraction within one cycle rather than at month end, and we keep the manual fallback documented. Budget for maintenance on these paths — a proposal that treats portal integrations as build-once is not being straight with you.
We are a mid-size 3PL, not a global forwarder. Does the economics still work?
Usually, and the sequencing differs. At lower volumes the invoice audit case is weaker in absolute rupees, so the first project is more often track-and-trace deflection or document extraction on your highest-volume lane. We will model it against your actual numbers in the audit and tell you if the answer is that you are too small for this to pay back yet. That happens, and it is better said in week two than month six.
Our customers each want their own reporting format. Does that scale?
It scales if the normalisation layer is built once and the per-customer formats are configuration rather than code. That is the design. What does not scale is the common alternative, where each new customer becomes a bespoke integration maintained by whoever built it. If you already have a dozen of those, unpicking them is its own project and we will scope it separately rather than pretending it comes free.
Talk to someone who has worked in logistics & supply chain
Bring a process that annoys you. In 30 minutes we will tell you whether AI helps, what it would cost, and where it would fail — even if the answer is don't bother.
Or email [email protected] · we reply within 1 business day