Case Study

A leading North American retailer autonomously runs multimodal logistics on the world's first agentic TMS.

$1M+ in savings. A six-system manual stack replaced by one decision layer governing ocean, rail, yard, and last-mile delivery.

Download Now

Segment & Geography

Industry: Retail. Multimodal logistics.
Region: North America

Objectives

Replace manual routing, dispatch, scheduling, and billing with autonomous, data-driven decisioning.
Gain real-time visibility across every leg, from ocean and rail import to store delivery and backhaul.
Consolidate six disconnected systems into one platform that scales with growth.

Locus Solutions Implemented

Dispatch agent: autonomous routing and dispatch across DC, hub, and last-mile to store.
Hub agent: yard management, DC processing, and ocean and rail transit orchestration.
Capacity & Carrier agents: load and trailer planning, plus backhaul matching across the 3PL network.
Customer agent: real-time shipment status, store ETAs, and a unified vendor and store portal.
Settlement agent: automated freight billing, validation, and reconciliation.
Enterprise integration layer: ERP, WMS, rail and ocean feeds, telematics, and carrier network.

Impact

$1M+

in savings

100%

real-time visibility across truck, rail, and 3PL

legacy systems replaced by one agentic TMS

6 to 9 mo

kick-off to go-live

Client Overview

A leading North American retailer operates one of the region's larger captive retail logistics networks: a multi-hundred-store footprint supplied through several distribution centres and a network of hubs. A private fleet of several hundred trucks and trailers moves tens of thousands of store deliveries a year across road and rail. Inbound freight arrives by ocean, then moves by rail and road into the DC network.

For years, that operation ran on six disconnected systems: GPS telematics, vendor scheduling, yard tracking, import visibility, freight matching, and spreadsheets. None integrated with the others, and the stack could not scale without adding headcount.

The retailer ran a disciplined evaluation, scoring over a dozen vendors against ranked must-have requirements across functionality, security, and integration. Locus, the world's first agentic TMS, scored highest, brought in to consolidate the fragmented stack into one autonomous decision layer.

Business Challenges

Decisioning was manual and static. Routing followed fixed patterns. Dispatching loads, scheduling appointments, and reconciling freight bills were all done manually. Planners could not adjust as conditions changed through the day, and every increase in volume demanded more people.
No real-time visibility across a multimodal chain. Freight moved across ocean, rail, DC, hub, and store, but nothing tracked it end-to-end. Rail status meant manually checking a carrier's website, and exceptions surfaced only after delays had reached store service.
Planning ran leg by leg, never as one system. With no integrated view across the network, trailers went out underfilled and return legs ran empty. The retailer could not match backhaul opportunities or maximize trailer and dock utilization, leaving capacity and revenue on the table.

Solutions Implemented

Locus deployed governed agents as the decisioning layer across the retailer's network, running alongside its existing ERP and WMS. Locus runs as the system of execution; the ERP and WMS stay as systems of record. Every agent decides on real-time data, operates within the rules the retailer sets, and gets sharper with every shipment it runs. No rip and replace.

Decisioning moved from fixed patterns to autonomous, constraint-governed execution. Dispatch agents run routing and dispatch across DC, hub, and last-mile to store, with 250+ operational constraints (vehicle types, per-store delivery windows, regional weight limits, peak blackout periods) modeled on every computation. Settlement agents automate freight billing, validation, and reconciliation.

One live view, from ocean to store shelf. The Hub agent orchestrates DC processing, yard management, and ocean and rail transit; the Customer agent delivers real-time status, store ETAs, exception alerts, and a unified portal for vendors and stores.

Planning unified across the network. The Capacity agent plans loads and trailers across the fleet, and the Carrier agent matches backhaul opportunities and tenders them across the 3PL network through a vendor dashboard. Empty return legs became backhaul revenue, planned across the network rather than leg by leg.

Enterprise integration that activates the agentic spine. Locus connects the ERP, WMS, carrier systems, telematics, and live feeds like traffic and weather that routing decisions depend on. The retailer's own operational data is the context the agents reason on, and the more they hold, the more they decide autonomously. Every autonomous decision stays governed by six mechanisms: explainability, traceability, evaluation, autonomy levels, execution sandbox, and human-in-the-loop override.

The Results

People

Dispatch, hub, and store teams now run on one decisioning system.

Hundreds of drivers executing on the mobile app, with dispatch, traffic, and coordination teams across multiple distribution centres on one platform.
Vendors and stores self-serve status, ETAs, and appointment booking.
Forward Deployed Engineers ran requirements, configuration, and change management on the ground, with remote teams for integration and custom build, training the retailer to own the system over time.