How AI is Revolutionizing Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management
How AI is Revolutionizing Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Artificial intelligence is taking up the pace when it comes to global logistics and supply chain management. As per a number of executives from the transportation industry, these fields are expected to go through a more significant transformation. The on-going evolution in the areas of technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and similar new technologies is said to possess the potential to bring in disruption and lead innovation within these industries.
Artificial intelligence comes with computing techniques which helps to select large quantities of data that is collected from logistics and supply chain. You can put such methods to use, and they can be analyzed to get results which can initiate processes and complex functions.
Many organizations have now been benefitted with investments in artificial intelligence. As per Adobe, currently, 15% have already started to use AI while other 31% plans to have them implemented in 2019. Some of the areas from which revenue can be generated are research and development, product innovation, supply chain operations, and customer service.
Impact of artificial intelligence in Logistics
Predictive capabilities will rise.
The efficiencies of the company in the areas of network planning and predictive demand are getting improved with AI capabilities. Companies get to become more proactive by having a tool which can help with capacity planning and accurate demand forecasting. When they know what the market expects, they can quickly move the vehicles to the areas with more demand and thereby bring down the operational costs.
To avoid risks, anticipate events and come up with solutions, now techs are using data. The data helps companies to use their resources in the right way for maximum benefits, and artificial intelligence helps them with it more accurate and faster manner.
Robotics.
You cannot talk about artificial intelligence without mentioning robotics. Even though robotics is considered as a futuristic technology concept, the supply chain already makes use of it. They are used to track, locate and move inventory within the warehouses. Such robots come with deep learning algorithms which helps the robots make autonomous decisions regarding the different processes that are performed in the warehouse.
Big data.
Apart from robots, artificial intelligence is also about big data. For the logistics companies, Big Data helps to optimize future performance and forecast accurate outlooks better than ever. When the insights of Big Data are used along with artificial intelligence, it helps to improve different areas of supply chain like supply chain transparency and route optimization.
For AI in the logistics industry, coming up with clean data is a huge step, and they cannot implement without having such usable figures. It is not easy to measure efficiency as data comes from different sources. At the source level it is not possible to improve such data, and so algorithms are used to analyze data, enhance the quality of data, identify issues to attain transparency which can be used for business benefits.
Computer vision.
When you are moving cargo across the world, it is always good to have a pair of eyes to monitor, and it can be best when it comes with state-of-the-art technology. Now you can see things in a new way by using computer vision which is based on artificial intelligence for the logistics.
Autonomous vehicles.
Autonomous vehicles are the next big thing that artificial intelligence offers the supply chain. Having driverless trucks can take a while, but the logistics industry is now making use of high-tech driving to increase efficiency and safety. The significant change is expected in this industry in terms of assisted braking, lane-assist, and highway autopilot.
In order to achieve lower fuel consumption, better-driving systems are coming up which works on to bring together multiple trucks to have formations. Computers control such formations and they are connected with one another too. Such kind of configuration is said to help the trucks save fuel distinctively.
Impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in Supply Chain.
AI offers contextual intelligence.
AI provides the supply chain with contextual intelligence which can be used by them to reduce the operating costs and manage inventory. The contextual information helps them to get back to the clients quickly.
Companies make use of AI along with machine learning to get new insights into different areas which include warehouse management, logistics and supply chain management. Some of the technologies used in these areas are AI-powered Visual Inspection to identify damage and carry out needed correction by taking photos of the cargo by using special cameras and Intelligent Robotic Sorting to sort palletized shipments, parcels and letters.
AI offers insights to boost productivity.
By making use of AI in supply chain management, it is possible to analyze its performance and come up with new factors which impacts the same area. In order to find the factors and issues which affects the performance of the supply chain, AI combines the capabilities of different technologies like reinforcement learning, unsupervised learning and supervised learning.
AI helps with demand forecasting by analyzing large volumes of data.
AI makes it possible to measure and track all the factors which can work towards offering accuracy in demand forecasting. Based on the weather, real-time sales and other factors, it provides continuous forecasts in a loop. Such kind of information can help with automated sorting, improving warehouse management, self-management of inventory systems and forklifts that are self-driving.
AI can help with improving the selection of the supplier and its effectiveness.
AI can analyze the data related to the supplier like audits, in-full delivery performance, credit scoring, evaluations and based on that deliver information which can be used to make future decisions. This kind of step helps the company make better decisions as a supplier and work towards improving customer service.
AI helps to improve the customer experience.
As per Pega, 38 percent of consumers believe that AI can enhance customer service. AI personalizes the relationship of customers with logistics providers. Customers can now make use of voice-based service to track their shipment. In case any issues come up when the customer will be redirected to the customer assistance team.
AI improves factory scheduling and production planning.
With the introduction of AI now companies can work on enhancing factory scheduling and production planning. They can work on to analyze the different issues and then optimize them. With AI having the power to balance constraints this can work well for build-to-order situations automatically.
Impact of artificial intelligence in Transportation.
Issues in transportation arise when system behavior is hard to form based on the predictable pattern which is affected by human errors, traffic or accidents. In such situations, AI can come to your rescue. AI predicts decisions based on data analysis. AI is now implemented in a number of ways across the transportation industry, and some have been explained below:
Corporate decision making.
By making use of AI methods, the fright transport system can make use of prediction methods to know about their volume in order to simplify planning for the transport company. Moreover, it is possible to design a number of decision-making tools which can be run by AI. Such kind of investments in AI will help the companies in the future in a better way.
Improvement in public safety.
By real-time tracking of crime data in the urban areas, it has become possible to ensure the safety of the people who are making use of public transport. Such kind of data can be used by the police to make their patrolling efforts efficient and work towards ensuring the safety of the people.
Autonomous vehicles.
Over the last many years self-driven cars and trucks have been a thing of interest for people. To boost productivity and decrease the instances of accidents over highways, Elon Musk and Uber have developed self-driving trucks.
Safety of pedestrians.
It is possible to decrease injuries and traffic accidents by predicting the path of cyclists and pedestrians. Gaging traffic information allows for reducing overall emissions and various transportation usage.
Traffic patterns.
The traffic flow is said to affect transport significantly. When the data related to traffic is used for traffic management by making use of AI, then such information can be used to dramatically reduce the congestion in traffic as well as streamline it. Today a number of AI-based solutions are used to build smarter traffic solutions, and they are said to play their roles effectively.
Summary
With recent breakthroughs in technologies like big data and machine learning algorithms, in the future, AI is said to come up with unusual solutions in the supply chain, logistics and transportation industries.
(72)
