A few decades ago, artificial intelligence still seemed like a pipe dream – a far out technology that we wrote into our movies and television shows, not something that we could yet interact with on a daily basis. Now, technology has made leaps and bounds in our attempts to streamline as many processes as possible. For those who work in trucking and logistics, efficiency is key to determining profit and positive feedback.
According to The Economist, “McKinsey estimates that firms will derive between $1.3trn and $2trn a year in economic value from using AI in supply chains and manufacturing.” And going to the source itself, McKinsey claims that, “63 percent of respondents report revenue increases from AI adoption in the business units where their companies use AI,” indicating that there is significant potential for artificial intelligence in supply chain management. Below are three main ways AI is expected to change the industry:
1. Demand Prediction
In an ever-changing market with high competitiveness, many businesses cannot afford to overestimate the amount of product it will need to carry in order to make a profit. Overestimating means that the company will lose time, money, and resources on the leftover product. On the other hand, lowballing your product amount might mean that you lose out on potential customers and income. What can you do? Recent studies by Deloitte indicate that AI has an ability to predict these product demands better than humans. With an unfair advantage, artificial intelligence can analyze and connect every piece of information and spit out probabilities in a much faster, cost effective way. In addition, AI can help predict individual customer needs by analyzing what products have been of use to them, and what products or services will continue to best serve them. Happy customers make return customers, and an industry running on happy, efficient transactions is an industry that is thriving.
2. Back Office Operations
In many companies, there are office tasks that seem repetitive and monotonous. For logistics companies, this reality is made even more daunting by the sheer amount of information and clerical responsibilities that workers must face. By combining AI with RPA (Robotic Process Automation), a different technology is created, called cognitive automation. Cognitive automation is able to analyze and optimize areas of logistics such as transport capacity, real-time decisions, and end-to-end supply chain. Having AI take over daily operations that clog the pipes, so to speak, helps improve the quality of your employee’s work, while lowering costs and errors.
3. Warehouse Automation
Using artificial intelligence to automate warehouse operations has the advantage of increasing revenue while lowering transportation costs that would otherwise be incurred. With the help of AI to predict demand for a product, companies can send products to regional warehouses ahead of time and cut back on costs by having more time to schedule routes and other arrangements. Warehouse automation also brings the addition of computer vision, which can pinpoint and organize inventory, quickly and accurately. It can even communicate with nearby warehouses to help determine which location would be most efficient for the product to be shipped from.
What do you think? Is AI the future, or are there better ways to increase efficiency in transportation? Did we miss anything? Let us know by reaching out to us at marketing@zuumapp.com.
Related sources:
https://towardsdatascience.com/how-ai-changes-the-logistic-industry-3d55401778d
https://www.zdnet.com/article/artificial-intelligence-works-its-way-into-supply-chains/