The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly accessible and used to enhance business processes and results in various fields such as financing, healthcare, retail and others, not just for transport and logistics.
According to an Oxford Economics and NTT DATA survey of 1,000 business leaders conducted in early 2020, 96 per cent of businesses were exploring AI solutions and more than 70 per cent had completely deployed or at least piloted the technology. Nearly half of survey respondents said that failing to introduce AI would result in customer loss, while 44% stated that their company’s bottom line would suffer.
Simply put, AI allows business analyzers to quickly make informed and important business decisions in large quantities of business information.
In particular, the transport management sector uses this intelligence and its technology, Computer Lesson (ML), to increase process efficiency and visibility to execute, which lead to impacting improvements that support the bottom line.
Cost reduction, sales growth tools
Research by McKinsey shows that 61% of managers report cost reduction, and 53% report sales increases as a result of the introduction of AI in their supply chains.
The supply chains are some of the major areas for the savings received by high volume shippers, with lower inventory prices, reduced inventory costs and lower transport and labour costs.
In addition, AI improve revenues, forecasts, analytics and network optimization of the supply chain management.
AI is used effectively by the shipping industry and other freight carriers, so as to minimise the amount of unprofitable empty miles or “dead head” trips a carrier takes home after loading with an empty trailer.
AI would also identify other secret trends in historical data for freight selection, the most effective labour resource planning and loading and stop-sequences, the rationalisation of rates and other improvements in the process by using historic uses to better prepare and achieve results.
The Machine Learning section of this new technology allows companies to refine routing and also prepare for disturbances caused by the weather.
ML allows transport management experts, for instance, to understand how weather conditions affected time it took to transport loads in the past and then takes current data sets into account for predictive advice.
The pandemic speeds up AI and ML adoption
The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) placed enormous strain on a variety of industries, including transportation, but it also offered a silver lining — the potential for improvement. Due to the growing pressure on companies to function smarter in order to meet consumer demands and desires, there is an increased willingness to retire outdated legacy resources and invest in more effective processes and technology tools.
Applying AI and machine learning to pandemic-related challenges may mean the difference between accelerating or decelerating transportation management professionals’ development. When used properly, these tools enhance logistics visibility, provide data-driven planning insights, and aid in the efficient automation of processes.
As with many other promising new technologies, AI and machine learning have often been misrepresented or, worse, overhyped as panaceas for vexing market challenges. Transportation logistics organisations should exercise caution and due diligence when determining when and how to implement AI and machine learning in their operations. Panicked recruiting of data scientists to incorporate expensive, complicated technologies and overengineered processes can be a costly boondoggle that sullies the perception of these truly effective and useful tech tools’ viability.
Rather than that, companies should spend time learning about the technology and how it is already delivering value to early adopters in the transportation logistics industry. Which measures should a logistics operation take before embarking on an AI/ML initiative?
The accuracy of the data is paramount
Keep in mind that your data’s quality dictates how quickly your AI journey progresses The primary virtue of successful artificial intelligence (or any big data project) is constant data management and hygiene. Compiling, arranging, discovering, and getting access to this information is a big difficulty for many. The survey revealed that 70% of respondents say that error-filled data and uninformative data are a big problem Other popular data quality complaints included third-party data (~42%), messy stores of disorganised metadata (50%) and unstructured data (44%).
Historically, the transportation industry has been slow to recognise the need to adopt new technologies, and it is making up ground with 54% of respondents expecting it to be ubiquitous in the next five years 75% of enterprises will implement a streaming AI infrastructure that will drive a fivefold rise in data and analytics application delivery
For a number of transportation management firms, it will be the first step to getting access to the right data. At the moment, the best artificial intelligence is just as good as the amount of data you offer it and the variety of the data you provide.
Review options and contemplate enlisting the assistance of an editor
Businesses need to look into the integrity of their data and current technologies to better understand the knowledge they already possess before jumping on the AI bandwagon.
AI-based approaches do not demand that you be a data scientist, when it comes to investing in digital transformation should be used. In the event, you aren’t certain how to begin, go about it, consider partnering with a transportation management (TMS) that has demonstrated proven success and expertise with AI.