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Missed pickups have long been an accepted cost of doing business in less-than-truckload shipping. They\u2019re frustrating, inefficient and expensive, but for an industry built on shared capacity and tight scheduling, they\u2019ve often felt unavoidable. C.H. Robinson is betting that doesn\u2019t have to be the case.<\/p>\n
The logistics provider has rolled out a new set of AI agents designed specifically to tackle missed LTL pickups. When one pickup fails, it can trigger a cascade of delays across terminals, routes and other customers\u2019 freight. By automating how missed pickups are identified, investigated and resolved, C.H. Robinson says it\u2019s already seeing measurable gains in speed, efficiency and network reliability.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s AI agents now automate 95% of missed pickup checks, eliminating more than 350 hours of manual work each day.<\/p>\n
Freight is moving as much as a full day faster, and unnecessary return trips, when carriers are dispatched only to find freight still unavailable or already collected, have dropped by 42%. For an LTL network where a single truck may handle freight from 20 different shippers, those reductions translate into fewer disruptions for everyone sharing that capacity.<\/p>\n
Missed pickups are rarely simple. Freight may not be packaged or staged on time. A carrier may be delayed by traffic or terminal congestion. Sometimes the pickup already happened, but the confirmation never made it through fragmented systems.<\/p>\n
As Greg West, vice president for LTL at C.H. Robinson, puts it, \u201cA missed pickup isn\u2019t just a minor inconvenience. When a truck arrives and the freight or packaging isn\u2019t ready, or the carrier couldn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
C.H. Robinson\u2019s new approach replaces much of that manual work with coordinated AI agents. One agent contacts carriers to gather information on missed pickups, while another uses that information to determine the next best action. Working in parallel, the agents can make hundreds of calls and decisions at the same time, compressing what once took hours into minutes. The result is faster resolution, earlier visibility for shippers and receivers, and fewer wasted trips across LTL networks.<\/p>\n
So far, the system is resolving hundreds of shipments each day across more than 11,000 customers. West says the impact extends beyond C.H. Robinson\u2019s own operations. By aggregating and sharing missed-pickup data with carriers daily, the company is giving them insight into issues they previously struggled to isolate, from communication breakdowns to terminal-level operational constraints.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cBefore this transformational tech, teams of people spent over half the day chasing missed pickups \u2013 manually checking carrier websites, making calls, recording updates and notifying customers,\u201d said West. \u201cIf we couldn\u2019t nail down the shipment\u2019s status, we\u2019d have to retender it and carriers would send another truck, often to find the freight still wasn\u2019t ready or had already been picked up. Now that all that time and capacity aren\u2019t being wasted, it keeps other shippers\u2019 freight from getting delayed.\u201d<\/p>\n
For C.H. Robinson, the launch also serves as a case study in what it calls Lean AI, a disciplined approach to deploying artificial intelligence only where it can produce tangible business outcomes.<\/p>\n
Mark Albrecht, the company\u2019s vice president for artificial intelligence, said the missed-pickup problem stood out because of how much hidden waste it created across the network. \u201cWe don\u2019t just throw AI at anything and everything. It\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agents were initially deployed to support small and midsize customers using C.H. Robinson\u2019s Freightquote platform before being scaled across its broader LTL customer base last summer. They now join a broader portfolio of more than 30 AI agents the company has built to support LTL pricing, order management, freight classification, tracking and proof of delivery.<\/p>\n
While missed pickups may seem like a narrow operational issue, C.H. Robinson\u2019s bet is that solving them at scale can unlock broader efficiencies across LTL shipping. Fewer wasted miles, better utilization of equipment and clearer visibility don\u2019t just benefit individual shippers; they help stabilize networks that depend on shared capacity.<\/p>\n
The post How C.H. Robinson is using AI to fix LTL\u2019s missed pickup problem appeared first on FreightWaves.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n