2023 Automation Trends in Freight Forwarding

The whitepaper focuses on the automation trends in freight forwarding. It underscores the importance of a Transport Management System (TMS) and the potential labor savings that can be achieved through automation. The paper identifies three key automation trends: the use of AI to convert paper documents into structured data, the automation of freight invoice auditing and posting, and the employment of third-party providers for automated reporting. Each trend is discussed in detail, with the challenges and solutions associated with them highlighted.

The first trend involves the use of AI to transform paper documents into structured data, a process that often faces challenges due to high variance in accuracy and poor flexibility when exceptions occur. The second trend, automating freight invoice auditing and posting, has shown significant time savings, but can be delayed by discrepancies and exceptions that often require manual intervention. The third trend is the use of third-party providers to automate reporting, which reduces dependencies on internal team members and the man-hours required to generate reports.