An agent that can act on a shipment can also act on a mistake
Logistics exceptions are numerous, repetitive and expensive to staff, which makes them the most credible target for agent automation in any sector we work in. They are also physical: a rebooked container, a released payment or a cancelled collection is not reversed by rolling back a database. The authority model has to distinguish the actions that are recoverable from the actions that are not, and it has to do so before the pilot.
Three engagements we are asked for
Exception triage and rebooking
Classification, proposed remedy and — inside a limit — execution, with everything above the limit routed to a person with the evidence attached.
Needs: a value limit · a reversible action set · a named approver rota
Documentary checking
Matching documents against an order and a rule set, with citation to the clause that failed.
Needs: an authoritative document store · versioned rules · a discrepancy log
Multi-party event coordination
Where several counterparties’ systems must converge on one sequence of events, with arbitration when two proposals conflict.
Needs: an agreed schema · an ordering rule · a stated arbiter
What we will tell you not to do
Published because it is the fastest way to find out whether we are the right firm for this — and because it is what we say in the room.
Do not give an agent an irreversible physical action
Release, dispatch and payment are one-way. They may be proposed with full evidence; they are committed by a person or by a policy-checked service under an explicit limit.
Do not automate against counterparty data you do not control
If a partner’s feed is late or wrong, the agent is confidently wrong at machine speed. Gate on data freshness, and fail closed.
Do not run a pilot without a per-run cost ceiling
The failure mode nobody plans for is not a bad decision, it is a loop. Bound the run, alarm on the bound.
Evidence
- Two engagements described generically under NDAno consent on file
No client is named without fresh written permission. Entries above are the record as it stands, including the ones we cannot yet name.
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Tell us which of the three above is closest, and what has to be true for it to work in your control environment.