C.H. Robinson says it is using artificial intelligence to reduce missed pickups in less-than-truckload shipping, automating much of a process that has long caused delays across LTL networks.
The logistics company said new AI agents now automate 95 per cent of checks on missed LTL pickups, saving more than 350 hours of manual work per day and moving shippers’ freight up to a day faster. Unnecessary return trips to retrieve missed freight have been reduced by 42 per cent, the company said.
C.H. Robinson said missed pickups are a persistent industry issue due to the complexity of LTL shipping, in which a single truck may carry freight from up to 20 different shippers.
“A missed pickup isn’t just a minor inconvenience,” said Greg West, vice-president for LTL. “When a truck arrives and the freight or packaging isn’t ready, or the carrier couldn’t make it because they got stuck in traffic, it forces another truck to come back the next day. That might not even be our shipper’s freight, but it creates a domino effect for other freight that was supposed to get picked up and for all the other trucks down the line.”
The company said the AI agents are currently resolving hundreds of shipments a day across more than 11,000 customers. Two AI agents work in tandem, with one contacting carriers about missed pickups and another determining next steps, allowing hundreds of calls and decisions to be made simultaneously.
“Before this transformational tech, teams of people spent over half the day chasing missed pickups – manually checking carrier websites, making calls, recording updates and notifying customers,” said West. “If we couldn’t nail down the shipment’s status, we’d have to retender it and carriers would send another truck, often to find the freight still wasn’t ready or had already been picked up. Now that all that time and capacity aren’t being wasted, it keeps other shippers’ freight from getting delayed.”
C.H. Robinson said the data generated by the AI agents is also being shared with carriers to help improve communications, identify operational issues and optimize scheduling.
“Sharing our new missed-pickup data with carriers every day allows them to see which electronic communications could be improved, isolate operational issues to particular terminals and optimize their scheduling,” said West. “Having more efficient LTL networks nationwide benefits our employees, carriers and customers – and everybody else who uses LTL shipping.”
Vice-president for artificial intelligence Mark Albrecht said the technology reflects the company’s “Lean AI” approach.
“We don’t just throw AI at anything and everything,” Albrecht said. “It’s not a hobby for us. We use AI agents only where they can deliver tangible business results. Our Lean AI processes helped us uncover the extent of time wasted in handling missed pickups and where artificial intelligence had the most potential to augment our automation software. The agents first started assisting the small- and medium-size customers who use our Freightquote platform. Then in July we started scaling the agents across our LTL customers, giving them faster, smarter, better supply chains.”
The company said the new tools are part of a broader suite of more than 30 AI agents supporting LTL pricing, orders, freight classification, shipment tracking and proof of delivery.
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