The past decade has seen several businesses jump onto the sustainability bandwagon without actually understanding the scope of the said term. It can be summed up as “meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Not restricted to natural resources, it speaks about social and economic resources as well. Sustainability is not just environmentalism. Embedded in most definitions of sustainability, we also find concerns for social equity and economic development”.
Now the question to be addressed is how one can achieve it in logistics. Here, Artificial Intelligence plays an important role by simplifying numerous monotonous processes that take up tons of manpower and man hours whilst still having a chance of an error
Logistical Efficiency
Artificial Intelligence has all the data that it needs to service and accordingly it gives you the most accurate output. Logistics is an energy-intensive industry and has a major impact on the environment. To fix this problem, AI gives the most fuel-efficient route by making use of the GPS technology and also assigns duty, thereby eliminating the risk of any major catastrophe caused due to any mistake of the driver because he was just exhausted.
Having a huge freight of transportation vehicles is one thing and maintaining them is the one tedious job which includes a lot of manpower to do so too. If the vehicles are not in their optimum condition, then it will consequently affect the performance as well as have a very bad environmental impact. To avoid any such machine downtime, the analytics will let you know which vehicle is to undergo maintenance or servicing and at what period in time.
Demand Forecasting
Demand forecasting continues to remain one of the main attributes for any business operation. What does this mean? In layman’s terms, it means that to predict the demand so accordingly they can stock up their inventory. This is very important as it might cause huge losses to the business if the stock is not used or extra stock is loaded as it might go waste and if it is less, it might cause supply shortage which will affect the business or brand’s reputation. This will directly affect any company’s future or as we speak of the sustainability of the company.
To avoid such kind of wastage, bad credibility and risk of sustainability, we are now bestowed upon by the services of artificial intelligence that has a huge data reservoir that can predict all the factors that will affect these attributes and provide substantial data to these companies, businesses and brands. This feature of demand forecasting was substantially important in the pandemic situation because physical shopping or purchasing was restricted and it was difficult to predict the demand in different regions. Thanks to this AI feature, businesses were able to predict the demand, as they possessed the data of customers’ purchasing history. These are a few attributes that help in achieving the goal of sustainability in the logistics industry.
A Paperless Future
Apart from the already abundant inventory, the supply chain deals with bundles of paperwork from LRs to PODs, invoices and the several other mandated documents. This sustainability movement has compelled many businesses to conduct their operations in a paperless manner. These processes have led the supply chain to move and connect with updated standards of speed. The environmental cost of trees, the monetary cost of printing, along with the uninspired time and manpower lost in compilation of all paper documents set the companies back marginally.
Integration of all these stakeholders into an online platform has saved the wastage of billions of single use papers. Furthermore, the avenue of analytics that the online platform opens up, allows firms to better their predictive analytics. Problems and loopholes in the supply chain can be observed from a macro perspective, minimising future wastage or damage. The management of the inventory remains transparent for the businesses, creating a good demand-supply equilibrium; ensuring any discard due to overstocking and expiration is avoided.
A Green Branding
Investors, clients, in addition to emerging employees, remain the driving force of an organisation’s growth. The agenda of ‘going green’ has spread its wings in all possible directions attracting the vested interest of these three factors. The investors are being influenced by numerous platforms daily to move their money towards eco-friendlier establishments. The transparent and human rights invested supply chain of a firm ensures a branding that aligns with everything they might be looking for. Such a brand positioning might also appease the clients as well who have been trying to soothe their minds by trying to make small eco-friendly changes to their purchasing habits.
The ‘millennials’ along with every generation following them are witnessing the deterioration of their ecosystems first-hand. This convinces the up-andcoming workforce, which tends to be more inclined to take part in green initiatives, to join forces with the organisations that are doing the same. More stringent norms are expected to be received from the governing bodies in the light of the newly released reports by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). This initiative of campaigning for a cause apart from mere profits further percolates in the company’s culture, once the employees see a systemic change in the way a process is implemented.
Though these changes might seem minute at the first glance, their snowball effect leads to consecutive weeks of supply efficiency. The predominant concern companies have in mind whilst making this transition is the cost that Eliminate wastage of resources to save the future by inculcating green initiatives they would incur while adopting a system and the time the chain would take to get used to it. CargoFL’s long term technology takes away this worry as well to ensure your company is contributing towards a greener earth. Organisation of a business precedes its growth, which brings in our role in your progress. We provide you an opportunity to get a firmer and greener hold of your trucking, analytics, dispatch and RTMS with a seamless and SaaS integration.
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