Logistics companies rely on all sorts of modern technologies to boost professional productivity, but Artificial Intelligence (AI) proved to be by far the most important tool of all. Smart machines are revolutionizing supply chain management, thus making operational processes simpler, faster, and more accurate.
The impact of AI on logistics is highly versatile, but we can easily identify the most important features because they make the biggest impact on the entire industry. In this post, we will analyze seven core benefits of AI-powered supply chains. Let’s take a look!
Artificial Intelligence: Definition, Stats, and Basic Features
Before we delve deeper into the subject, we want to explain the concept of AI along with its basic features. By definition, AI represents a system’s ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation.
What makes AI so special and omnipotent?
Jake Gardner, an essay writer who specializes in business and finance, says the answer lies in its incredible features: “AI can emulate human logic, but it has much bigger processing power. It has the potential to process enormous datasets and analyze tons of information within seconds.”
Such smart technology obviously has a lot of practical applications, which is what numerous studies proved already:
- AI will grow into a $118.6 billion industry by 2025.
- 80% of emerging technologies will have AI foundations by 2021.
- Companies using AI for sales were able to increase their leads by more than 50%, reduce call time by up to 70%, and realize cost reductions of almost 60%.
- Nearly 60% of executives say AI solutions implemented in their businesses have already increased productivity.
7 Ways to Improve Supply Chain Management with AI
You’ve seen the definition and the impact of AI on modern businesses in general, but now it is time to concentrate on supply chain management in particular. Without further ado, let’s check out seven ways to improve your supply chain with AI.
1. Simplified inventory management
Inventory management is the foundation of the supply chain, which means that it’s extremely important to make it as accurate as possible. But with so many variables that you need to take into the calculation, getting the job done manually becomes very challenging and time-consuming.
This is why modern supply chain managers use AI to simplify the process.
The system can analyze and interpret data in real-time, thus giving you precise instructions in a timely manner. You can figure it all out effortlessly – supply and demand – and create accurate forecasts without the fear of making a mistake. Instead of overstocking, AI will help you to keep stocks to a sufficient minimum.
2. Warehouse automation
When it comes to supply chain management, it all starts from your warehouse. If it doesn’t function properly, you can hardly ever achieve the highest level of professional performance and satisfy the needs of your customers.
Once again, AI is able to help you with that through the automation of warehouse procedures.
Michael Jacobsen, one of the professional essay writers at the best dissertation service, explains that AI is able to solve some of the major warehousing issues in no time: “Using smart technologies, you can introduce simpler procedures, speed up the work, and minimize the number of employees needed for everyday duties.”
3. Improved warehouse safety
We stick to the warehouse realm to discuss another benefit of AI-powered supply chains. Namely, smart planning and organization based on AI systems can lead to the improvement of warehouse safety. How come?
Well, the idea is simple – AI will analyze data related to workplace safety and immediately identify common issues that jeopardize the health of your employees. With such feedback at your disposal, you can react promptly and reorganize so as to make the warehouse a safer place to work at.
4. Use chatbots for better customer service
Take a look at these websites and try to guess what they have in common:
- academic paper writing service
If you paid close attention, you probably realized that all these websites relied on chatbots to augment their services.
Chatbots are AI-powered customer service agents that enable around the clock availability According to the report, chatbots can help businesses save on customer service costs by speeding up response times and answering up to 80% of routine questions.
But this is not the only benefit of using chatbot technology in supply chain operations. On the contrary, you can also make use of the system to automate procurement. Instead of talking to one of the employees, your clients can now interact with chatbots to make orders and place other requests.
5. Predict industry trends
Another thing you can do with AI in the supply chain is to use it to predict future trends and customers’ new needs and demands. The system enables the highest level of agility because you can discover clients’ needs before they even realize it.
How is this possible?
AI will learn everything about your customers and analyze each channel of business communication. From chatbots and websites to emails and SMS communication, the smart system will explore users’ comments and inputs to discover their future requests.
This is not a novelty in the business universe. Top essay writing services started using AI a long time ago to find out what their clients want, which helped them to create a whole range of new offers.
6. The rise of autonomous vehicles
Proactive supply chain operators already invest in AI-powered autonomous vehicles. It’s a relatively new technology that can create a huge gap between market leaders and their less agile competitors because self-driving trucks drastically improve efficiency.
With autonomous vehicles at your disposal, shipping becomes simpler and faster while helping you to reduce the workforce to the bare minimum. According to the report, autonomous trucks gain ground in US logistics, but the trend is yet to grow bigger and more influential in the years to come.
7. AI cuts costs
After everything we’ve mentioned so far, it is clear that AI is helping supply chains to cut operational costs. Self-driving vehicles are only one example - a fully autonomous trucking market would cut operating costs by 45%, saving carrier companies between $85 billion and $125 billion annually.
However, the benefits go well beyond that since AI is also cutting labor expenses. From customer service to warehouse operations, supply chains now need fewer employees to reach the same (if not higher) level of professional productivity.
Conclusion
Supply chain management is a complex business with way too many variables for a human being to figure it out completely. Without AI, a flawless and timely administration of logistics processes would be close to impossible.
In this article, we discussed the seven core benefits of AI-powered supply chains. These are not the only advantages of using smart technologies in logistics, but they do make the biggest impact on supply chains. Have you already deployed any kind of AI-powered system in your company?
