CHICAGO, Oct. 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Redwood Logistics (Redwood), North America’s leading open fourth-party logistics (4PL) providers, today announced the launch of Redwood Advisory, a supply chain advisory and consulting practice. The new practice is formed through Redwood’s acquisition of JBF Consulting (JBF), a Guilford, Connecticut-based, vendor-agnostic supply chain technology advisory firm with more than 20 years of dedicated logistics experience serving shippers across various industries. Redwood Advisory helps shippers decide what to change in their strategy, operating model, technology and data, then aligns with them to make the change work.
Redwood Advisory extends Redwood’s work in both directions. Upstream, the practice takes on the decisions that come before implementation: network strategy, future-state design, technology selection, and data and AI readiness. Downstream, it stays involved through adoption and continuous improvement, measuring whether the change delivered what the business case promised. Redwood’s technology delivery teams, managed operations and RedwoodConnect™, Redwood’s digital supply chain integration platform, sit in between, so a shipper can move from strategy to execution without handing the plan to a new team.
“Building an advisory team from scratch would have taken us years. JBF brings significant experience building trust with shippers navigating their most critical logistics and technology decisions,” said Erin Breen, Chief Growth Officer, Redwood. “We spent two years getting this right. Our customers kept asking us to get involved before a TMS selection or an AI program was locked in. Now we can do that with a team that has been doing this work for two decades.”
The need shows up in the data. In a March 2026 survey of senior supply chain, logistics and technology leaders, JBF found that nearly 42% are not confident in their organization’s ability to independently evaluate complex logistics technology, and only 4% strongly agreed that their organization clearly distinguishes between a technology business case and its broader supply chain strategy. Redwood’s 2026 AI in Logistics Report found that only 13% of shippers deploying AI are generating quantifiable results, with data quality and integration gaps as the top barriers.
What Redwood Advisory delivers:
- Logistics Health Assessments and supply chain strategy
- Future-state operating model, organizational design, and process design
- TMS, WMS, GTM, and broader logistics technology strategy and selection
- AI readiness, use-case prioritization and value design
- Data readiness, governance and integration foundations
- Transformation leadership and implementation guidance
- Adoption, continuous improvement and value realization
“RedwoodConnect gave us the technology to integrate, harmonize and orchestrate whatever systems and partners a shipper runs,” said Mike Reed, Chief Product Officer, Redwood. “What customers need on top of that is help sorting out the journey: which operating model fits, which technology to buy, where AI will pay off and how to prove it. Redwood Advisory lets us start that conversation earlier and stay in it longer, from the first assessment through go-live and every improvement cycle after.”
AI readiness is a core focus of the practice. Redwood Advisory will use Redwood’s AI Readiness Scorecard, which benchmarks organizations on organizational structure, data foundation, technology architecture, and change management and governance, to help shippers find high-value use cases and build a practical path to measurable adoption.
Redwood Advisory will keep JBF’s vendor-agnostic approach ensuring recommendations are based on what fits each shipper’s network, including the systems and partners the shipper already runs. Shippers can engage Redwood Advisory on its own or as the first step in a broader 4PL relationship.
“For over two decades JBF has helped shippers cut through the noise to build resilient supply chain strategies that deliver measurable results,” said Brad Forester, CEO and Founder, JBF. “Joining forces with Redwood allows us to expand on this mission at scale. By combining our expertise with Redwood's ability to orchestrate, execute and integrate, we will be able to provide shippers a complete connective strategy from implementation all the way to long-term value realization.”
JBF founder and CEO Brad Forester and Tara Buchler, principal of strategy and former vice president of product management at e2open, join Redwood along with the JBF team. Redwood Advisory will operate within Redwood’s Innovate business unit.
To learn more about Redwood Advisory, visit https://www.redwoodlogistics.com/shipping/supply-chain-advisory.
About Redwood Logistics
Redwood Logistics® is a leading logistics company and Open 4PL headquartered in Chicago. For more than two decades, Redwood has delivered innovative solutions for moving and managing freight while helping shippers build smarter and more adaptable supply chains.
Redwood is an Open 4PL that unifies logistics execution, supply chain technology, and open-ecosystem integration to run, optimize, and continually improve complex supply chains.
This model brings together deep multimodal execution expertise with advanced integration and orchestration capabilities to provide real-time visibility, reduce operating costs, and support more intelligent end-to-end operations.
This approach is powered by RedwoodConnect™, a digital supply chain integration platform that links partners, technologies, and processes into a coordinated and flexible ecosystem. Through this strategy, Redwood enables customers to shape their own digital supply chain fingerprint and access the tools, insights, and experience required to manage dynamic logistics networks.
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