Supply chain due diligence you work through with seven agents: they trace every input to the raw material and cite the proof, you accept each link and sign the pack
Detained goods released with a trace to the raw material, every link proved.
See one case, screen by screen ↓The work of finding out who makes what behind each product — down to the raw material — screening those companies for forced-labour and other risks, and keeping the evidence. Supply Chain Due Diligence does it with seven agents that map lower-tier suppliers, build a trace to the raw material with every link cited, check kilograms and dates across tiers, and draft the forced-labour evidence pack for UFLPA, LkSG and CSDDD. A compliance lead accepts each link and signs.
How to choose AI solutions for back-office and enterprise work →
Updated
When US Customs detains a shipment under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the importer has 30 days to trace every input, through every stage of production, to the raw material — or the goods are excluded. Missing information on a single supplier can deny the whole shipment. The garment maker answers your email; its fabric mill, spinner and gin are names in a reply. The records that prove each step — purchase orders, production records, gin receipts, mill affidavits — sit in suppliers' archives, often in another language.
The risk sits in what nobody adds up. A fabric invoice dated before the dye record, yarn that does not cover the fabric, a spinner that also runs mixed-origin cotton: each is a reason for a port officer to deny. Nobody carries kilograms and dates across five tiers by hand. And the same supplier map and evidence are rebuilt in separate spreadsheets for the LkSG risk analysis, CSDDD scoping and the EU Forced Labour Regulation.
Estimated split for one held apparel shipment traced to the raw material, by hand and with the solution, in calendar days.
Seven agents map, trace, weigh, screen, chase, draft and challenge every chain; the compliance lead accepts each link and signs the pack.
Kestrel & Vane Group imports branded workwear into the US. On 8 October 2026 US Customs detained 24,000 cotton T-shirts at Long Beach under the UFLPA — shipment SH-26-4471, $86,400 of goods, response due 7 November. Here is day 6, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Grace's Today screen is a thread from the agents: what they did overnight and the three things that need her. Six shipments are held at Customs, one pack is filed and waiting, and the next clock is SH-26-4398 on day 20 of 30. At the top, the Outreach agent reports that Hong Ha Knit & Dye uploaded the missing dye record for the T-shirts. Below it, a supplier that still won't name its spinner, and a possible listed entity behind a solar-panel shipment.
Outreach agent, 08:13: “It is the last open link in the ladder.”
Grace opens the shipment. Overnight the Tracing agent built six links from 16 documents: the T-shirts, Vinh Textile Garment JSC in Nam Dinh (cut and sew), Hong Ha Knit & Dye Co. in Hung Yen (knitting and dyeing), Tanaka Mills Vietnam Co. in Dong Nai (spinning), Coolabah Creek Gin in Moree, Australia, and cotton lot CL-2209 from the Gwydir Valley. Five rungs are proved. Hong Ha's rung is drawn dashed: there is a fabric invoice, but no record of who dyed the fabric.
On the dashed rung: “Missing: dye batch record for HH-FI-0733 — asked 9 Oct, reminded 12 Oct.”
Each rung carries its documents as small citations. Grace clicks GR-2209 on the gin rung and the gin receipt and bale list opens beside the ladder, with the passage the agent used highlighted: 412 bales, IDs 2209-0001 to 2209-0412, 93,524 kg of lint, ginned 12–19 May 2026 and sold to Tanaka Mills Vietnam Co. The drawer names the rung it proves and who read it.
“Read by Tracing agent · highlighted text is what it used.”
The Outreach agent asked Hong Ha's compliance officer, Nguyen Thi Lan, for the one record it needed — the dye batch record for fabric invoice HH-FI-0733 — in Vietnamese on 9 October, and reminded her on 12 October. At 08:12 today she uploaded DB-0733 from the dye house archive. A minute later the agent had checked it: a dye batch record, naming HH-FI-0733 and yarn lot Y-30C-0712, and signed.
“Sorry for the delay, the record was in the dye house archive. Attached: DB-0733 (2 pages).”
Grace asks the agents to read the upload. The Tracing agent matches it to the ladder, the Mass-balance agent checks the loss and the dates, and the Risk agent re-screens Hong Ha. The proposal: Hong Ha dyed 5,620 kg of greige from yarn lot Y-30C-0712 into 5,320 kg of navy fabric, 25 July to 1 August 2026, with 97% confidence. Greige in matches the knitting record; fabric out matches the invoice and Vinh's cut record; the 5.3% dye loss is inside the 4–8% tolerance.
“Accept, edit or reject it — nothing joins the ladder without you.”
Grace accepts the link and the ladder is complete: 6 of 6 links proved, 17 documents. The Quantities view carries the weight down the chain — 93,524 kg of lint, 78,560 kg of yarn at an 84.0% yield, 5,900 kg sold to Hong Ha, 5,620 kg of greige, 5,320 kg of finished fabric, 4,920 kg of T-shirts — each step checked and cited, and every yield and loss inside its tolerance.
Mass-balance agent: “Every kilogram on this shipment can be accounted for back to the 412 bales.”
Tanaka's rung sits in a risk band: its social audit report says the mill spins cotton of several origins for different buyers. Grace asks the agents directly. The Mass-balance agent answers with its sources: the line log shows lot CL-2209 ran alone on line 3 from 2 to 9 July, with no other lot between 1 and 10 July, and the mill affidavit says the same.
“I left the band visible so a reviewer sees we looked.”
With the ladder complete, the Pack writer drafts the admissibility pack for the Port of Long Beach: a cover letter and summary tracing report, a six-stage flowchart, then the entry and transport documents, the purchase order and proof of payment, and each tier's production records, down to the gin receipt, the grower delivery dockets, the isotope test and a bale-to-garment mass-balance reconciliation. 14 exhibits, 63 pages, every page carrying its source ID.
The Challenger is independent of the Pack writer and cannot approve. It reads all 14 exhibits, compares names, quantities and dates across them and checks that every stage of the customs guidance is covered. It finds one thing a reviewer would question: Exhibit 2 calls Hong Ha “knitting only”, while Exhibit 6 shows it also dyed the fabric. Its fix is to label the stage “knitting and dyeing”.
“The isotope test supports, but does not replace, the documents — correctly placed as Exhibit 13.”
Grace accepts the fix, chooses the reason code “Complete trace to raw material” and confirms she has reviewed the ladder, the exhibits and the Challenger's findings. The pack goes to Rosa Mendes, who files it with the broker on the port's portal — on day 6 of 30. Grace saves the chain as a cleared chain: the next shipment of the same T-shirts, SH-26-4502, already shows a summary tracing report.
“Cleared chain saved — SH-26-4502 will reuse it.”
The same detention, seen by five of the people who carry it — what their month looked like, and what it looks like now.
Seven agents map, trace, weigh, screen, chase, draft and challenge every chain; the compliance lead accepts each link and signs the pack.
Ties each product's bill of materials to its inputs and the suppliers that make them, from the ERP item master and purchase orders, and marks the inputs that need a trace to the raw material — cotton at 96% of the T-shirt's weight — against those where a signed declaration is enough.
Builds each rung of the ladder from purchase orders, invoices, bills of lading, certificates of origin, production records and gin receipts, including records translated from the supplier's language, citing the page and passage for every value. A rung without full proof is drawn dashed, with what is missing in words.
Carries kilograms and dates down the ladder — bales, yarn, greige, finished fabric, garments — and checks each yield and loss against your tolerances and that every step starts after the one before it ends.
Screens every entity on every rung, nightly and whenever a rung is added: the UFLPA Entity List, WROs and Findings, sanctions ownership, regional risk and audit reports. Shows each possible match side by side with the registry evidence.
Asks a supplier for the one specific record that is missing, in the supplier's language, and says why; reminds on day 3, escalates to the sourcing manager on day 5, and checks each upload is the document asked for before passing it on.
Drafts the admissibility pack in the order of the customs guidance's Appendix A — flowchart, origin per input, orders, payments, production and transport records — and the LkSG risk analysis, CSDDD and EU Forced Labour sections, every sentence citing an exhibit.
Reads each pack as a customs officer would: missing stages, names that differ between exhibits, quantities that don't add up and weak evidence. Each finding must be fixed or answered before the pack can be signed.
Accepts links, clears matches, signs packs. The agents propose; a named person decides.
On Today and beside every ladder, ask about any shipment, supplier or document in plain words — or give an instruction. Answers cite their sources.
Which suppliers are late?
Four suppliers owe documents: Meghna Apparels — spinner name, day 8, escalated; Penang SunWorks — wafer records, day 3; Indus Knit Mills — 1 gin receipt, day 2; Rajkot Cotton Weaves — weaving mill, day 2. Want me to remind them all?
Remind every late supplier
Reminders sent, each in the supplier's language: Penang SunWorks (RQ-2614), Indus Knit Mills (RQ-2615), Rajkot Cotton Weaves (RQ-2619). Meghna Apparels is already escalated to Daniel Okafor.
Which held shipments touch a listed entity?
One open possible match: Xinyuan Silicon Materials, the wafer supplier behind the KV-SP100 solar panels on SH-26-4459. It shares a parent with a listed company (86% name match, 60% common owner). I can't clear or confirm it — you decide.
What would Customs ask?
Reading as a port officer, I would ask three things: who dyed the fabric (now answered by DB-0733), whether the spinner kept this cotton apart (answered by the line log), and whether payments follow the goods (PAY-88213, TMV-26-2291). I will run a full review when the pack is drafted.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The rules the agents apply are settings. Every change needs a reason, goes on the audit trail and applies from the next run; past decisions keep the rules they were made under.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Trace to the raw material for | Cotton, polysilicon and solar, aluminium, PVC, steel | On or off per material — also tomatoes, seafood, lithium-ion batteries; off means a signed declaration and screening are enough |
| Spinning yield | 80–88% | Lower and upper limit; outside it the agent flags the link |
| Knitting yield | 93–97% | Lower and upper limit |
| Dyeing loss | 4–8% | Lower and upper limit |
| Cutting loss | 5–12% | Lower and upper limit |
| Name-match threshold | 80 | Possible matches at or above this score go to a person |
| Internal target to sign the pack | Day 20 of 30 | Leaves time for the broker; the 30 days are set by the notice |
| Supplier requests | 5 working days | Reminder on day 3 in the supplier's language · escalation on day 5 to the sourcing manager |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate · “typical” = published figures (Troutman Pepper on the 2025 UFLPA strategy — 6,636 detentions in H1 2025 against 4,619 in 2024; FashionUnited on apparel, footwear and textile outcomes, about 62% denied, not re-checked; US Department of Homeland Security, UFLPA Entity List additions of 14 January 2025 — 37 entities, 26 in cotton). Context: US Customs and Border Protection, Forced Labor Enforcement Operational Guidance for Importers, Pub. 5560-0526 (9 June 2026); LkSG §§5, 10; Directive (EU) 2024/1760; Regulation (EU) 2024/3015. People, companies, suppliers, shipments and documents named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
The work of finding out who makes what behind each product — down to the raw material — screening those companies for forced-labour and other risks, and keeping the evidence. Supply Chain Due Diligence does it with seven agents that map lower-tier suppliers, build a trace to the raw material with every link cited, check kilograms and dates across tiers, and draft the forced-labour evidence pack for UFLPA, LkSG and CSDDD. A compliance lead accepts each link and signs.
The agents build a tier ladder for the held shipment from your orders, entries and supplier documents, ask suppliers for what is missing, and check that quantities and dates add up. The Pack writer then drafts the admissibility pack in the order of the customs guidance's Appendix A, the Challenger reads it as a port officer would, and the compliance lead signs it for the broker liaison to file. On the sample shipment the pack was signed on day 6 of 30.
The Mapping agent ties each product's bill of materials to its suppliers and marks the inputs that need a trace to the raw material. The Tracing agent then makes a rung only when a document proves the link — an order, invoice, bill of lading, certificate of origin, production record or gin receipt — and cites the passage. A link without proof is drawn dashed, with what is missing.
It checks for the signs of both. The Mass-balance agent carries kilograms and dates down every tier and flags any yield, loss or timing outside your tolerances. When a mill also runs cotton of other origins, the Risk agent puts a risk band on the rung, and the agents look for proof the lot was kept apart — on the sample, a line log showing the lot ran alone.
Yes. The Risk agent screens every entity on every rung nightly and on each new rung — 3,812 entities on the sample data — against the UFLPA Entity List, WROs and Findings, sanctions ownership and regional risk. A possible match is shown side by side with the registry evidence; a person confirms or clears it, and accepting a risk needs the Chief Compliance Officer.
Yes. The Pack writer drafts the LkSG risk analysis, CSDDD readiness and the EU Forced Labour file from the same traces and screening, section by section with citations; the compliance lead approves each section and the Chief Compliance Officer signs. A signed chain is also saved as a cleared chain, so the next shipment of the same product gets a summary tracing report.
No. The agents propose links, flag risks and draft packs; a person accepts every link, confirms or clears every match and signs every pack and report with a reason code. The agents never send anything to customs or a regulator, and every step by people and agents is on an append-only audit trail.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your supplier code, high-priority materials list, tolerances and the systems behind your orders, entries and supplier records — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on one of your own shipments first.
Exceptions weighed and every user-entity control owned before the SOX year-end test.
1-min demoThird-Party Contract ReviewMissing audit, exit and subcontracting clauses fixed before renewal, not at inspection.
1-min demoSupplier Sanctions ScreeningNo payment reaches a supplier blocked through its owners; every alert brings its evidence.
1-min demoWe'll run Supply Chain Due Diligence on one of your own shipments — your orders, entries and supplier documents.