Dispatch Science CEO: 'Data absolutely at the heart and soul' of AI

Arthur Axelrad repeats what often is said: That “clean” information is not just important to implementing artificial intelligence-assisted technologies but also to all manufacturing applications and, especially, cyber defenses. Check out the video.
Feb. 12, 2026
2 min read

Smart Industry’s Robert Schoenberger met several manufacturing technology stakeholders this week at the Manifest supply chain and logistics conference in Las Vegas, and the topic of data came up with Arthur Axelrad, co-founder and CEO of Dispatch Science, specifically the need to provide “clean” data to AI so that it can be used by advanced systems.

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Dispatch Science is vendor of a cloud-based transportation management system that uses artificial intelligence and algorithms to optimize last-mile and middle-mile delivery operations.

The conversation took some intriguing turns as Alexrad “preached to the choir” about the need for organized and thorough data to feed into AI but also how the same lessons regarding data and AI apply to factories as much as they do to warehouses and logistics operations.

See also: Why manufacturing needs a new analytics layer

“Data is absolutely at the heart and soul of AI, and getting at it is really critical. So, applications like ours, whether ERP/TMS, warehouse management systems, and all of these different systems need to operate in a fashion that makes that data very readily available,” Alexrad said.

We won’t steal too much of his thunder. See the video of Robert’s great “get” of this CEO in Vegas. It's definitely worth a watch.

About the Author

Scott Achelpohl

Head of Content

I've come to Smart Industry after stints in business-to-business journalism covering U.S. trucking and transportation for FleetOwner, a sister website and magazine of SI’s at Endeavor Business Media, and branches of the U.S. military for Navy League of the United States. I'm a graduate of the University of Kansas and the William Allen White School of Journalism with many years of media experience inside and outside B2B journalism. I'm a wordsmith by nature, and I edit Smart Industry and report and write all kinds of news and interactive media on the digital transformation of manufacturing.

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