--- title: "Knowing where a shipment really is takes a phone call." url: "https://referent.app/industries/transportation-logistics" description: "Referent connects to the TMS, WMS and carrier portals that run your operation, including custom systems with no connector. Shipment status and exception handling from live data." --- Transportation & Logistics # Knowing where a shipment really is takes a phone call. The TMS says one thing, the carrier portal says another and the person who can reconcile them is on the road. Referent connects to the systems directly and answers with the live position, citing which system it came from. [Book a demo](/demo)[How it connects](#how-it-works) 0104How it connects ## It connects where your interface already connects. It maps the queries, the actions and the endpoints behind the interface, then connects at that level. Nothing to rebuild, nothing to migrate. Your team ### Questions and work, in plain language Chat, Slack, Teams or Telegram. Ask for a number, a report, a draft or a status. No new tool to learn. Referent ### The layer that understands your systems Maps queries, actions and endpoints. Answers from live data with citations back to the source. Executes the work on top: pulls the numbers, builds the report, drafts the follow-up. Your software ### The operational stack that grew by accretion A TMS chosen a decade ago, a WMS from a different vendor, carrier portals with no integration and the tracking spreadsheet that exists because none of them agree. * Custom TMS * WMS * Carrier portals * Tracking spreadsheets * EDI exports ### Standard tools too The 50+ connectors everyone advertises are included. That part is commodity. The hard systems are the point. * Microsoft 365 * Google Drive * Slack * Jira * Salesforce This is not RPA. No screen reading and no bots clicking buttons. Referent connects at the data layer, so a UI change does not break it. 0204Use cases ## Four questions that decide whether the day goes well. Answered against the systems themselves, not against yesterday's export. 01Shipment statusThe real status of any shipment, on requestWhere it is, what changed, which system says so. Customer service stops relaying questions to operations and answers directly.02Exceptions firstExceptions surfaced before the customer callsLate departures, missed pickups and orders at risk, identified from live data and pushed to the person who can act, rather than found during the afternoon review.03Customer updatesCustomer updates drafted from the actual recordThe follow-up email with the real ETA, the real reason and the real reference numbers, drafted for a human to check and send.04Operations reportingOperational reporting without the nightly exportOn-time performance, volumes, exceptions and carrier comparison, compiled on schedule from the systems of record rather than a manually maintained sheet. Live sessionTMS · Carrier portals You: Where is shipment TR-2026-4417 and why is it late? * read TMS · TR-2026-4417 * read carrier portal · last scan Referent It left the hub eleven hours late after a missed collection slot. Last scan was this morning at the Zaragoza platform, and the revised ETA is tomorrow at 14:00. Status In transit Last scan Today 07:12 Original ETA Today 16:00 Revised ETA Tomorrow 14:00 TMS · TR-2026-4417 You: Tell the customer, and give them the reason. * drafted the update * left it in your outbox Referent Drafted with the new ETA, the reason and the tracking reference. It waits for you to send it. 0304Deployment ## Days, not months. There is nothing to migrate and nothing to rebuild, so the timeline is short by construction. 1. 01 ### Map the system We watch how your existing app talks to the system underneath and document the queries, actions and endpoints behind it. 2. 02 ### Connect at the data layer Referent connects directly at that level. No connector to build, no migration, no change to the software your team uses every day. 3. 03 ### Validate with your team The people who know the process check the answers against reality. Permissions are mapped to the roles you already have. 4. 04 ### Live Your team asks in plain language and gets answers from live data, with citations. Scope grows from there. Reference deployment ### A mid-market manufacturer, on a custom ERP. Mapped, connected and in production in under a week, on a system no AI product could reach. System Custom ERP Time to production One week Migration required None 0404Security ## Built to clear the security review, not to argue with it. Most AI proposals die in IT. These are the properties that get the conversation past that point. * 01 ### Single-tenant isolation Your deployment runs in its own environment. Nothing is shared with another customer. * 02 ### Zero-retention models Prompts and responses are not stored by the model providers and are never used for training. * 03 ### Your permissions, mirrored Referent respects the access rules your systems already enforce. Nobody sees what they could not see before. * 04 ### No data duplication Answers are fetched from the live system at query time. We do not build a second copy of your database. * 05 ### GDPR European data protection requirements are part of the deployment, not an afterthought. * [ Read the security detail](/security) ## See it running on a system like yours. [Book a demo](/demo)[Sign in](https://dash.referent.app/onboarding) ## Be the first to hear about Referent news.