Why does Digital technology of Logistics must outline the future?
Technology has made our daily work and personal life much more efficient and stress-free via our smartphones and laptops. It is the reality of global connectivity. In Time! It is the other face of connectivity, the road becoming as important as time.
Ordering something is quite simple, but, to deliver it in time is most stressful. The product you ordered has to follow these steps: the customer order, the replenishment from manufacturers centres, the packaging, the shipping, the distribution, and the delivering in time right to your doorsteps, hoping to run smoothly throughout the Supply Chain.
And here is where Logistics becomes essential for all these processes.
There are three elements which are common across all such Logistics movements: The roads, time taken to move on-road, and the cost of mobility. But, as the old saying says, “not two paths are the same, and when it comes to infrastructure, road and traffic, the differences are titanic!
What is holding us back from achieving our full potential?
Retail and e-commerce demand are high. Customers orders are variable and demand for quickness. Factors like regulation and driver shortage put a strain on the shipping capacity of trucks, the volume of loads, number of vehicles on the road. According to the American Transport Research Institute (ATRI), the trucking industry experiences or suffers, about 996 million hours of congestion all along the national highways. Amazing, no?
How do companies could scale these problems that seem to go out of hands?
Decentralising their distribution networks with more locally-at hand warehouses, or third-party contractors to provide for incremental demand changes, could be some of many options. However, withstanding high customer satisfaction end to end with flowing scalability is of the highest importance. Rather than ignoring these issues, it is much better to undertake significant steps to face them.
Logistics and Technology, working hand-in-hand.
How can technology bridge the gap between logistics issues and customer satisfaction?
Technology plays a crucial role in counterbalancing the factors industries are experiencing and bridging the gap between Logistics and customer satisfaction. Some great benefits when deploying advanced technology:
• It can give you the anticipation of planning your operations accurately.
• Forecasting the exact number of vehicles, you need to fulfil incoming demands.
• You would identify the skill sets of your drivers, match them up to the ideal vehicle they operate or the shipment they would carry.
• Carrying items would be automatically distributed to them and loaded in no time.
• Picking and sorting products would be unaffected by making use of scanning mechanisms inside smartphones.
• The manager could take into consideration all chosen time-slots at the destinations,
• and adjust schedules if necessary. Or organise all of them, which would direct the trucks through the shortest routes, avoiding unnecessary traffic.
• As soon as reducing lead-times, the trucks can reach more destination points than before, spending lesser time on the road and returning to the warehouse sooner.
• Next, pushing the schedules to the smartphones of pickers and drivers.
• The pickers know what to take from which stack and load it in which truck.
• The capacity of each truck is optimised within the schedule.
Delivering scheduling and route planning software do this and more The manager can ensure trucks available before time without having to dip into spot markets at the last minute. Loading and dispatching are smooth and straightforward. By using multiple Artificial Intelligence devices, the drivers have interactive routing map apps, and it would direct them with perfect precision.
The element of unpredictability on the road
Digital technology can help companies minimise all this volatility too, as the company can be on top of all delivery movement in a real-time. It is a live dashboard where companies can view each truck, its location, moves, whether it is stuck, if there are any violations, whether the orders are being delivered on-time, and more. All this also comes as instant alerts. All planning activities and on-ground movement, and delivery validations are connected to the system. The manager can also plan all their logistics movement with only their voice, without even opening their smartphones or laptops.
CONCLUSIONS: so, now with the help of the right Digital technology, companies can pursue their scalability targets and builds-in a distinctive innermost-competency within their services, which would be hard to compete.
Technology saves time and costs for companies within Logistics movements. Forces better capacity and drivers time management resource and fuel costs considerably, and enhances delivery experience sure to heighten overall customer satisfaction. It gives a more economical, even profitable, platform for proper Logistics management.
Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things technology at its best!
Dave Food
