Case studies/Logistics and freight
An Atlanta-gateway freight forwarder on the US-EU lane running 8,400 packets a month, with CI-vs-packing-list mismatches only caught at customs broker review. We built a pipeline that flags variance at the packet level before the packet leaves the forwarder, so the broker sees a clean file.
| Packet | Shipper | Lines | Variance | Type | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATL-44218 | Brenner Werke GmbH | 8/8 | 0 pcs | none | reconciled |
| ATL-44219 | Heidel Optik AG | 12/12 | 1.2 kg | weight | reconciled |
| ATL-44220 | Vossloh Industrie | 6/6 | 20 pcs | quantity | awaiting shipper |
| ATL-44221 | Saint-Gobain Verre | 4/4 | 0 pcs | none | reconciled |
| ATL-44222 | Lavazza Export Srl | 9/9 | EUR 412 | value | reconciled |
| ATL-44223 | Maersk Industrial | 14/14 | 3 cartons | quantity | awaiting shipper |
| ATL-44224 | Pirelli Componenti | 10/11 | EUR 2,840 | value | filer review |
| ATL-44225 | Roca Sanitario SA | 7/7 | 0.8 kg | weight | reconciled |
| ATL-44226 | Bosch Rexroth NL | 16/16 | 0 pcs | none | reconciled |
At a glance
A forwarder sending clean packets to the broker and getting them bounced back two days later for CI variance. The work was to move the check upstream, onto the forwarder's desk.
The engagement
The stack
ISO 27001 · ISO 9001 · DPA and NDA signed at kickoff.
Before, the forwarder desk
The forwarder sent complete packets. The broker bounced the inconsistent ones back two days later. The cycle had a name: Friday rework.
The forwarder sent complete packets: a CI, a packing list, a HAWB. The broker compared CI line totals to packing-list pieces and weights. When they disagreed, the broker bounced the packet back for correction.
Pre-build baseline: approximately 4% of packets bounced back from the broker for CI variance, averaged over the prior year.
Because variance bounced back mid-week and the broker needed clean files by Friday close, two filers worked a dedicated rework queue. The rework was not the hard part: it was locating the shipper source documents for the correction.
Pre-build baseline: two full-time filer days per week consumed by CI variance rework.
The forwarder's workflow validated each document on its own: the CI had a valid shipper, consignee, and value; the packing list had pieces and weight. Nothing compared line totals across the two documents before the packet left for the broker.
Pre-build baseline: no packet-level variance check in the prior workflow.
What we built
The pipeline follows the same five stages we run on every logistics engagement. The details below are the ones we wrote for the Atlanta desk, against the shippers they actually work with.
Shipper portals polled on a 10-minute cadence. Shipper email routed via secure mailbox. EDI feeds normalised to packet records. The packet (CI + packing list + HAWB) treated as a single unit from ingest.
Document type tagged on ingest. Each document attached to the packet ID. Classification confidence below 0.90 holds the packet for desk review. Unknown shipper layouts routed to Google Document AI.
CI: invoice line items, quantity, unit value, total value. Packing list: pieces per carton, cartons per pallet, total weight. HAWB: master weight and pieces. All three normalised.
CI quantity agrees with packing list pieces. CI net weight agrees with packing list weight, within tolerance. HAWB totals agree with both. Any mismatch above the commodity tolerance flags the packet.
Clean packets posted to CargoWise and released to the broker handoff folder. Flagged packets held in a named forwarder queue with the variance in plain English, not buried in a diff view.
After, the numbers the forwarder signs off
Same filers, same shippers, same broker relationship. The pipeline ran the variance check before the packet left the forwarder, and the Friday rework queue stopped being a rolling fixture.
Filers still own every flagged variance. They still own the shipper follow-up when a CI and a packing list genuinely disagree. The difference is that variance surfaces at the forwarder desk on the same day the documents arrive, not two days later from the broker.
From the forwarder desk
We used to find out on Wednesday that a Monday packet was broken. Now we find out on Monday, and we fix it on Monday.
Operations leadFreight forwarder, Atlanta gateway
Handover
The engagement ends at a clean handover. The forwarder ops team runs the pipeline; Hexaa stays on call for a fixed retention period, then steps back.
Related cases
Each links to a named client, a named document, and the system the clean data lands in. We publish only what the client signed off to publish.
28,000 customs packets a month reconciled inside a four-hour clearance window. LlamaParse on intake, CargoWise as the system of record.
→Logistics · 2025Customs broker · HS classification against product master42,000-line product master as the authority, confidence thresholds tuned per commodity family. CBP audit-flag rate cut below 1%.
→Construction · 2025Commercial GC · submittal queue against the primeSubmittal log reconciliation against the prime contract spec. 1,200 submittals per project, Procore as the system of record.
→Free 30-minute call
You'll leave with a clear next step.
The CI says one quantity and one net weight. The packing list says another. The HAWB carries a master total. The pipeline compares all three at the packet level and flags the variance before the packet is released to the broker.
