Artificial intelligence has made the entire supply chain management process simpler and more accurate. This eliminates human work, which is crucial for companies that want to reduce costs and errors.
Meanwhile, AI is proving advantageous for other areas of supply chain management, prompting more companies to adopt it into their workplace.
With the progress of AI at breakneck speed, companies have already invested in AI for their supply chain management. The result is complete automation from production to delivery with an overall improvement in efficiency and speed.
From accurate event analysis to operational cost reduction, AI makes it possible to deploy intelligent, agile, and customer-centric supply chain.
Artificial intelligence integrated with business solutions allows a better understanding of internal or external events that can affect the supply chain.
By facilitating the management and optimization of the supply chain, artificial intelligence makes it possible to re-allocate resources more efficiently and improve the overall performance of the company.
One of the main interests of artificial intelligence is to provide accurate predictions. Today, there are solutions that allow companies to analyze data and history in order to derive the best predictions and recommendations.
The optimization of carrier routes is important for the efficiency of logistics. This is especially true for the last mile which is the most complex part of the transport to handle.
Customers are increasingly eager to have as much detail as possible on their deliveries, precise time slots, the possibility to deposit packages in relay points, etc.
Artificial intelligence will make it possible to create an autonomous fleet, and the development of algorithms which will make it possible to know the satellite plans, the information on the traffic, and related peculiarities of each city.
Autonomous vehicles have begun to take control of mountain transport. If there is a territory where this advancement can have a significant impact, it must be in the field of logistics and navigation.
Driverless trucks may be in the early stages of development, but progress towards a positive conclusion. If driverless trucks are introduced, they can overcome many obstacles, particularly with respect to the mandatory ridge that humans need.
The laws of most countries stipulate that drivers can only perform 11 hours of unhindered driving.
With driverless trucks, driving can continue efficiently for 24 hours, and it will certainly reduce the cost by at least 25 percent.
Some other Benefits Include:
- AI helps improve the customer experience.
- AI provides models on improving supply chain management productivity.
- Analyzes huge volume of data and increases the accuracy of demand forecasting
Also Read: Six Ways Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Supply Chain Management
Artificial intelligence now enables the tracking and measurement of all factors needed to improve the accuracy of demand forecasting.
In fact, it provides an infinite forecast loop, continuously adjusting the forecast based on weather, real-time sales, and other factors.
Having all this information could easily modify warehouse management with automated sorting, self-driven forklifts, and self-managed inventory systems by autonomous land vehicles and drones.
Amazon has already stationed this model in its distribution centers.
AI is being used to estimate and calculate the influence of extreme weather on shipping times. IBM and its subsidiary, The Weather Company, use 100 terabytes of weather data every day to produce location-specific weather forecasts that calculate possible delays due to hurricanes, storms, and typhoons.
A good illustration of personalized customer experience is DHL Parcel's cooperation with Amazon. The company offered a voice-based service for monitoring packages and shipping information using the Echo Amazon smart speaker solution.
A buyer can consult Alexa to find out the current location of their shipment simply by asking “Alexa, where is my order?
Artificial intelligence has the ability to recognize inventory and order patterns to unveil which items are being sold and which need to be replenished first.
Proper inventory-based and warehouse management is a must for competent supply chain planning. Machine learning has been an essential part of BMW in managing logistics.
What the automobile giant exactly does, is that it tracks the journey of a small component of a vehicle from its inception to the point where it is part of a fully-realized vehicle.
BMW thereby optimizes about 31 assembly lines which are spread over 15 countries.
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Six Ways Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Supply Chain Management
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