Spartan’s dispatchers build AI agents after CEO’s ‘insane’ AI push
Texas-based carrier’s VP of operations automates hourly reports, cutting dispatcher workload by 17%
Spartan Carrier Group’s dispatchers have gone from dismissing artificial intelligence as “absolutely insane” to building their own AI agents, after founder and CEO Carlos M. Llanes Jr. pushed the technology two years ago. The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier now automates hourly customer reports that once took up to 15 minutes to compile manually, freeing 17% of a dispatcher’s day.
Kendrick Dawson, Spartan’s vice president of operations, was among the skeptics when Llanes first pitched AI. “At the time, all of us looked at him like he was absolutely insane,” Dawson told FreightWaves during an interview at Trimble Insight in San Diego last month. “We’re like, bro, it’s never going to happen. What are you talking about? Where are you getting this information? Two years later, here we are.”
From manual reports to AI agents in under two weeks: Spartan
Spartan’s first AI agent was built in a week and a half using Alvys Foundry, a platform launched in August that lets carriers create AI agents within their transportation management system (TMS). The agent automates hourly customer reports that dispatchers previously assembled by hand in Excel, a task that took between seven and 10 minutes on average, and up to 15 minutes for newer hires. If Spartan doubled its freight volume, Dawson estimated the same report would take closer to 20 minutes.
“When I asked dispatchers in July which one task they would eliminate, every one of them named the hourly route updates,” Dawson said. After a single meeting with an Alvys staffer to learn Foundry, he handed off the report template. A sample returned within two days, and the agent was operational in under two weeks.
Dawson had forgotten he switched it on until his inbox filled during the operations team’s 9:30 a.m. call. “Literally 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock, 12 o’clock, 1 o’clock, perfectly on time,” he recalled. The automated reports matched the dispatchers’ work “almost 100%,” and Spartan began sending them to customers the following Monday.
Growing without adding headcount
Spartan runs a 24/7 operation with just four dispatchers, one per shift and one covering weekends and gaps. The carrier, which grew from zero to about 150 trucks in five years, hauls just-in-time automotive freight, with Toyota as its biggest customer.
Dawson’s test for any new tool is whether it allows Spartan to double its volume without hiring another dispatcher. “We don’t want to let anybody go, we don’t want to fire anyone,” he said. “It’s how can I maximize my operation with the same headcount that I have now, and allow those people an opportunity to grow and learn to do different things.”
Dawson, who joined Spartan from Ryder in 2021, sees logistics as a problem-solving field. “I have a hard time believing that anybody goes into logistics because they want to look through PDF documents, or they want to look at a screen all day long and just press a button,” he said. “To teach someone a new skill, you first have to free up their time.”
“Driver workforce is the number one most important thing for any logistics company,” Dawson said. “But in order for them to be happy, you can’t mess up their payroll.".
Dawson, who describes himself as “not a tech guy,” plans to start editing Foundry workflows himself for the payroll agent. He wants dispatchers and field operators to build their own AI agents, using templates that require little more than a customer name and report format. “If I got 25 customers tomorrow, I would just say, what template do you want, A, B, or C?” he said. While Foundry seems “relatively intuitive,” he acknowledged some nuances remain challenging. “So far, it seems relatively intuitive, but there’s some nuances that I think are a little bit difficult.”
For Dawson, the goal is clear: free up time for dispatchers to focus on problem-solving, not paperwork. “I just run trucks,” he said. “But if AI can help me run them better, I’m all for it.".
Sign up free to ask CAMAL AI for a summary, the key points or anything else about this story.
Related stories
CAMAL AI
Financial Ports Newsletter
The maritime economy, every morning
Ports, shipping and freight markets in one short email. Free.
