Architecting Resilience in Global Freight Forwarding with a Causal AI Framework

The global freight forwarding industry confronts complex and cascading risks. Conventional analytical methods are often inadequate for managing these risks. This paper proposes a protocol to construct and utilize a causal Artificial Intelligence (AI) framework for systemic risk management. The protocol comprises three primary stages. The first stage involves the construction of a hierarchical Bayesian Network (BN). This BN serves as a causal knowledge graph. Its construction synthesizes domain expertise to map the relationships between fundamental risk drivers and core Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Cost, Time, and Reliability. The second stage is the parameterization of the BN through the definition of conditional probabilities. This step fuses expert judgment with insights from industry reports. The Noisy-MAX model is employed to manage uncertainty in data-scarce environments. In the final stage, the parameterized model is used to perform predictive simulations and diagnostic analyses. Forward inference generates a baseline risk profile. Concurrently, sensitivity analysis identifies high-leverage intervention points. The application of this protocol yields several critical insights: (i) market supply and demand are identified as the central node of systemic risk. (ii) The model generates distinct risk fingerprints for each KPI. Cost exhibits the highest vulnerability to commercial factors. Time is most sensitive to logistical disruptions. Reliability is uniquely exposed to cybersecurity threats. This work contributes an interpretable AI tool. The tool functions as a what-if engine. It enables freight forwarders to shift from reactive crisis management to proactive, precision-guided risk mitigation.