In March 2021, a single container ship — Ever Given — blocked the Suez Canal.
For six days, $9.6 billion in global trade was stranded per day. Nearly 12% of world trade froze. Ships backed up on both sides of the canal. Cargo destined for Europe sat idle in the Red Sea. Cargo bound for Asia waited in the Mediterranean.
The most important decisions were made in the first few hours:
Which vessels reroute around Africa?
Which cargo gets transshipped?
Which containers receive priority when the canal reopens?
Who had authority to decide — and under what constraints?
Months later, most companies could not explain their decisions with evidence.
“In global logistics, the cost of a bad decision isn’t the delay — it’s the inability to explain why that decision was made.”
Supply chain disruptions don’t stay local. They cascade across continents in hours. And when they do, companies that can clearly explain their decisions recover more quickly. Companies that can’t — litigate. This is where Context OS becomes foundational.
400+ ships stranded
$9.6B in trade is blocked daily
Global schedules collapsed
Decisions were made through:
Emails
Calls
Improvisation
Fragmented authority
Months of disputes followed.
Context OS diagnosis:
Context Rot + Decision Amnesia + No shared decision substrate.
At peak congestion:
100+ ships anchored off Los Angeles and Long Beach
Weeks-long berth delays
Holiday inventory missed
Perishables spoiled
Inland bottlenecks multiplied
Every actor optimized locally — and the network broke globally.
76 terminals offline
No visibility into containers
Paper-based operations
$300M direct losses
When systems failed, decision-making collapsed with them. There was no prioritization. No coordination. No decision record.
Why do supply chain disputes last so long?
Because traditional systems track outcomes, not decision rationale or authority.
| Incident | Decision Failure | Global Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Ever Given | Uncoordinated rerouting | $9.6B/day stranded |
| Port congestion | Local optimization | Months of backlog |
| NotPetya | The decision infrastructure collapsed | $300M loss |
| COVID supply chains | No precedent | Multi-year disruption |
Disruptions are inevitable. Coordinated decisions determine recovery.
Without a shared decision substrate, logistics AI fails predictably:
Context Rot – Decisions based on stale port or network data
Context Pollution – Thousands of alerts, no signal priority
Context Confusion – Normal congestion treated as a crisis (or vice versa)
Decision Amnesia – Past disruptions are not reusable as precedent
Every major supply chain crisis exhibits these failures.
How does Context OS improve logistics resilience?
By embedding governance, authority, and decision lineage directly into operational workflows.
Shipping is not a single-enterprise problem.
It spans:
Ports & terminals
Ocean, air, rail, and road carriers
3PLs and 4PLs
Shippers and consignees
Customs and regulators
Systems of record answer what happened. They do not answer why it happened. And in logistics, “why” determines liability, trust, and resilience.
A Governed Context Graph represents the shared operational reality across the logistics network — without centralizing control.
It captures:
Shipment state across modes
Asset availability (vessels, containers, chassis)
Network conditions (congestion, capacity)
Disruption signals with uncertainty
Contractual commitments and SLAs
Regulatory and sanctions constraints
Authority boundaries across organizations
Key principle:
Context is shared. Control remains distributed.
If Context Graph models reality, Decision Graph models judgment. A Decision Graph captures complete Decision Lineage:
What triggered the decision
What context was assembled
Which constraints were evaluated
Which alternatives were considered — and rejected
Who had the authority to decide
What action was taken
What outcome followed
This is preserved operational reasoning, not logging.
Explain berth priority, safety limits, and authority across carriers.
Make rerouting decisions transparent to customers and partners.
Protect against blame when upstream disruptions cascade downstream. Same shipment. Different decisions. Shared context.
Decision Graphs provide evidence by construction for:
Emissions (IMO, EU ETS)
Customs classification
Sanctions screening
Security frameworks
Hazmat handling
When regulators ask why, the answer already exists.
Why do supply chain disputes last so long?
Because traditional systems track outcomes, not decision rationale or authority.
Governance cannot be post-hoc.
With Context OS:
Invalid decisions cannot be executed
Authority violations auto-escalate
Compliance failures are structurally impossible
Governance is architectural, not advisory.
Autonomy scales only with trust.
Trust benchmarks:
Decision accuracy
Lineage completeness
Partner satisfaction
Regulatory compliance
If trust degrades, authority contracts automatically.
| Tracking Platforms | Decision Intelligence |
|---|---|
| Track cargo | Govern decisions |
| Optimize locally | Coordinate globally |
| React to disruption | Anticipate cascades |
| Audit later | Prove now |
Ports move ships. Carriers move networks. 3PLs move promises. Decision Graph moves accountability.
Shipping doesn’t fail when assets stop moving. It fails when decisions cascade across boundaries without shared context or preserved judgment. Context Graph captures reality. Decision Graph captures reasoning. Together, they form the decision substrate for resilient global logistics.
What is a Context Graph in shipping and logistics?
A Context Graph is a shared, governed representation of real-time operational conditions across ports, carriers, and logistics partners.