Operational Excellence (OPEX) Daily Briefing – Tuesday, November 11, 2025: Agentic AI and the OPEX 4.0 Revolution in Logistics Operations
Điểm Tin Operational Excellence (OPEX) Mỗi Ngày – Thứ Ba, Ngày 11/11/2025: Agentic AI và Cuộc Cách Mạng Vận Hành OPEX 4.0 trong Logistics
Welcome to my unique weekday article for the paid subscriber-only edition.
Operational Excellence (OPEX) Daily Briefing – issued on weekdays (Monday to Friday).
Điểm tin Operational Excellence (OPEX) hằng ngày (phát hành các ngày thứ Hai đến thứ Sáu).
This is the bilingual post in English and Vietnamese. Vietnamese is below.
Đây là bài viết song ngữ Anh-Việt. Tiếng Việt ở bên dưới.
English
Part 1: Official Statement
On November 11, 2025, DHL Supply Chain — the contract logistics division of DHL Group — officially announced a strategic partnership with AI company HappyRobot to deploy Agentic AI assistants for automating communication across operations. The announcement, released through DHL Group’s internal newsletter and global press statement, emphasized the goal of “boosting productivity, enhancing employee experience, and optimizing customer interaction” across the global supply chain.
According to the announcement, HappyRobot will provide an AI agent system capable of automated communication via phone calls, emails, and messaging platforms, integrated directly into DHL’s operational infrastructure. These AI agents can schedule appointments, make follow-up calls to drivers, coordinate warehouse activities, and update delivery progress in real time. The system is expected to handle hundreds of thousands of emails and millions of minutes of calls per year, helping reduce repetitive workloads, shorten response times, and improve operational accuracy.
The decision to adopt Agentic AI represents not just a technological upgrade but a strategic transformation in DHL’s approach to operational efficiency. Traditionally, logistics automation initiatives have focused on warehouse robotics, route optimization, or intelligent inventory management. However, DHL is expanding the scope of OPEX (Operational Excellence) to include the automation of operational communication — a domain once viewed as secondary but one that directly impacts both productivity and employee experience.
In the press release, a DHL Supply Chain spokesperson stated:
“We want our people to focus on more valuable work, while AI agents take over repetitive and frequent communication tasks. This is how we improve efficiency while keeping the human element in service.”
This statement reflects the core philosophy of Operational Excellence (OPEX) — where people, processes, and technology are integrated into a single, continuously improving system.
In the logistics industry, where every minute of delay translates to cost, automating operational communication offers multiple strategic advantages:
• Accelerated response and coordination across complex transportation workflows.
• Reduced risks and human errors caused by manual data entry or updates.
• Global consistency in communication processes across thousands of warehouses and operational centers.
• Enhanced employee experience, as the workforce is supported by intelligent tools rather than overwhelmed by administrative tasks.
From an OPEX perspective, this initiative represents a shift from “process optimization” to “intelligent operational thinking.” DHL is not merely operating faster — it is operating better, more accurately, and with the ability to learn continuously.
This initiative is also part of DHL Group’s “Digital Supply Chain 2030” strategy, which focuses on integrating AI, data, and intelligent automation to enhance flexibility and resilience across the global supply chain.
The collaboration between DHL Supply Chain and HappyRobot marks a significant milestone, showing that operational efficiency in the new era is no longer limited to conveyor belts and warehouse robots — it now lies in artificial communication intelligence, where every call, message, or delivery request becomes a source of learning data that makes the system smarter with each passing day.