Arham is the Founder and Chief Trucking Officer of Trucknetic. He has been a serial entrepreneur, integrating technology in the conventional worlds of logistics, commerce and energy. He strongly believes that India is an amazing story which hasn’t been written yet. Arham is a mechanical engineer turned social entrepreneur turned investment banker. He was the Managing Director of Apeejay Overseas Limited.He has been selected for prestigious fellowships such as Indo-German YLF, Indo-Swiss FLF, IDEX Global, World Merit, ALS (University of Chicago). He has done Entrepreneurship – Leading change through innovation courses from Stanford University. He has been awarded Entrepreneur of the Year Award by IAF in 2020.
At this point in 2022, it is no secret that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has deeply seeded itself into our society. From finishing our sentences through automated suggestions to drone-delivered packages — Artificial Intelligence has demonstrated its extreme innovative potential for helping to maximize efficiency in many different areas of our lives.
The emergence of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and blockchain has also transformed the chaotic and fragmented logistics market.
The most significant advancements this technology has brought include autonomous vehicles, automated warehouses, predictive analytics, and smart roads. The technology offers to automate and simplify numerous processes, thus helping companies save both time and money.
It plays a crucial role in saving time, reducing costs, increasing productivity and accuracy with cognitive automation. Artificial Intelligence helps in automating various time-consuming processes and helps in demand forecasting. It helps in logistics route optimization, which helps in reducing the costs of shipping, which further aids in generating more profits.
This modern technology helps to completely transform warehousing operations in the form of collecting and analysing information or inventory processing.
In some countries, robots are already being used widely for instance, inside warehouses to move, track and locate inventories. Through Artificial Intelligence, logistics market players are able to leverage data platforms and create datasets to regulate patterns and anomalies.
How Artificial Intelligence in Logistics Works?
- Autonomous Vehicles
Artificial intelligence is profitable for transportation. Autonomous vehicles bring changes to the supply chain and help reduce expenses in logistics. These vehicles can work on their own or with a human driver.
However, these vehicles are not fully autonomous yet. At present, government regulations and technology do not allow having autonomous vehicles on the roads without drivers. As per many countries’ laws, the driver still has to be behind the wheel to control the situation on the road and analyze potential risks, but that is expected to change in the future.
Autonomous vehicles bring changes to the supply chain and help save time and reduce costs. But more importantly, as per some study, driverless technology could help reduce the number of accidents. Moreover, it helps the environment by reducing fuel usage.
- Automated Warehouses
Artificial intelligence changes many warehousing operations, e.g. data collection, inventory processes, and more. As a result, companies can increase revenues.
Artificial intelligence technology in warehouse automation is being used for predicting the demand for particular products. Based on this information, orders can be modified and the in-demand items can be delivered to the local warehouse. This predicting of demand, and planning of logistics well in advance, means lower transportation costs.
Meanwhile, computer vision technology used in warehousing allows recognizing and organizing items. In the future, this modern technology will help perform quality control and eliminate the need for human supervision.
- Smart Roads
‘Smart Roads’ is one that incorporates communication and AI technology to better facilitate various operations such as road safety, traffic management, and mobility enhancement. Several companies are working on building them. Smart roads help improve road safety and reduce delays in the supply chain caused by unfavorable weather conditions, making deliveries faster.
Smart Roads are equipped with solar panels and LED lights. The solar panels coverts energy from the sun into electrical energy and prevent roads from being slippery during winter months, as they have the ability to heat up. While, the LED lights alert drivers about the changing road conditions. It provide highly valuable information for businesses that use them to transport their products.
Smart Roads with fiber optic sensors are connected to the internet and can predict traffic volumes and patterns and warn drivers of upcoming traffic jams. It can also sense when vehicles leave the road or when an accident occurs and alarm emergency services.
- Predict the demand and improve customer experience
Artificial intelligence in the logistics sector can assist in predicting demand. Of course, companies need to predict the approximate number of goods to speed up delivery. In another case, if there’s a limited amount of goods but the demand is high, the business will lose some money.
This technology offers algorithms that can predict these trends. Certain Artificial intelligence-based tools can make predictions even better than human specialists, which means lower inventory and simplified warehouse management.
Another benefit of AI in logistics industry is enhancing the customer experience. This technology can ensure a better customer experience through personalization and product suggestions based on customers’ buying habits and personal preferences. Customers will appreciate a more personalized experience and become more loyal to the company.
- Back Office Operations
Back office operations are crucial for the logistics industry. These new technologies as AI (Artificial intelligence) and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) allow employees to speed up the working processes.
In combination with RPA, this technology enables employees to improve their performance by increasing productivity and accuracy. The back-office operation automation helps companies with supply chains save both time and money. With this type of new technology, some categories of employees, such as accountants and human resources specialists, can be replaced. Consequently, the probability of human error will be lower.
These modern technologies aids in bringing truckloads of data, which the transportation industry has been capturing data for years. A few years back, trucking, rail and sea cargo were tracked by satellite via telematics.
The sudden and rapid growth of digitization and transformation is making more and more companies to add artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning to their supply chain in order to maximize their resources by reducing the time and money spent on tracking the goods to send a package to any location.