Paint might not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about logistics innovation. But Sherwin-Williams, the American multinational behind some of the world’s most recognised paint and coatings brands, operates one of the more complex retail supply chains in the consumer goods sector. It has tens of thousands of company-owned stores and delivers products across the United States on a near-continuous basis. That scale means even small inefficiencies in freight management add up to high costs.
In results announced on May 8, ITS Logistics revealed that its Retail Delivery solution helped Sherwin-Williams achieve an 11% increase in freight utilisation. That figure might seem modest in isolation, but it represents a substantial gain when applied across a logistics operation of Sherwin-Williams’ size.
Freight utilisation, in simple terms, is a measure of how well a truck’s capacity is being used. A vehicle that drives from a warehouse to a store half-empty wastes money on fuel, driver time, and wear. Multiply that inefficiency across hundreds of routes and thousands of deliveries per week, and the cumulative cost becomes enormous. Raising utilisation by 11% means significantly more of each truck’s capacity is put to productive use, with fewer empty or near-empty miles.
ITS Logistics, a provider of managed transportation services, achieved this through an AI-driven optimisation system designed specifically for retail delivery. Rather than relying on fixed route schedules or manual planning, the system continuously analyses delivery volumes, store locations, timing windows, and vehicle capacities to generate more efficient delivery plans. The result, according to ITS, was not just better utilisation but also lower costs and improved on-time delivery performance for Sherwin-Williams.
The ITS Logistics US Distribution and Fulfilment Index for Q1 2026 pointed to lean inventories straining under high transportation costs and tight capacity. In this environment, the ability to get more out of existing freight resources without simply spending more is particularly valuable.
ITS CEO Scott Pruneau, commenting on the results, emphasised technology’s role in delivering efficiency at a moment when market pressures are squeezing margins across the supply chain.
The broader context is a logistics sector undergoing significant transformation. For much of its history, freight planning was a largely manual process, dependent on dispatcher experience and fixed contracts. AI-driven tools have changed that, allowing companies to respond dynamically to changing conditions and find optimisations that human planners simply could not identify at scale.