by Elizabeth Hines | Mar 20, 2019 | Blog, Logistics, Robotics & Automation, Supply Chain
With the power to drastically increase efficiency in all areas of the supply chain, it’s important brands are exploring the benefits of AI. Here are four examples of how AI can benefit your supply chain.
Highlights:
- It’s estimated that supply chain firms could gain $1.3 to $2 trillion a year from using AI.
- Machine learning has the ability to quickly discover patterns in supply chain data by relying on algorithms and constraint-based modeling to find the most influential factors.
- The increasing popularity of chatbots is making it harder to ignore how AI is helping shape not just the daily logistics but also the B2B marketing landscape and operational procurement for supply chain industries.
Artificial intelligence is not simply affecting supply chain management, it is revolutionizing it.
With the power to drastically increase efficiency in all areas of the supply chain, McKinsey estimates that firms could gain $1.3 trillion to $2 trillion a year from using AI in supply chain and manufacturing.
Here are 4 examples of AI and how it’s changing supply chain management for the better.
1. Autonomous transport
There’s nothing more exciting than the field of autonomous transport for SCM. We’ve all known for many years that driverless trucks have major potential to affect supply chain management and logisitics.
We aren’t there yet – and “anyone employed as a driver today will be able to retire as a driver” — but if autonomous trucking can be developed to its potential, the technology would effectively double the output of the U.S. transportation network at 25 percent of the cost.
The conversation is no longer simply talking about vehicles on the road either. Google and Rolls-Royce recently partnered to build autonomous ships too.
2. Final-mile delivery route efficiency
One doesn’t have to have a driverless vehicle, however, to use AI to optimize delivery logistics.
For example, in the “devilishly complex” task of delivering 25 packages by van, the number of possible routes adds up to around 15 septillion (that’s a trillion trillion).
That’s where route optimization software and AI-powered GPS tools like ORION — which UPS uses to create the most efficient routes for its fleet — are making their mark. With ORION, customers, drivers and vehicles submit data to the machine, which then uses algorithms to creates the most up-to-date optimal routes depending on road conditions and other factors.
And there are also other autonomous entities out there besides cars, trucks, and ships. Robots using LIDAR technology are now being used to deliver items in crowded city environments. For example, Marble’s robots deliver medicine, groceries, and packages, and they also track their routes and the condition in order to continuously improve delivery for the next time. Additionally, last-mile solutions with drones continue to be explored due to their ability to move quickly and bypass almost all ground-level obstacles.
3. Demand forecasting, particularly for warehouse management and SCM strategy
Machine learning has the ability to quickly discover patterns in supply chain data by relying on algorithms and constraint-based modeling to find the most influential factors. This ability to find data patterns without human intervention has applications in EVERY aspect of SCM, but demand forecasting is a particularly influential component beneficiary.
Warehouse management and SCM strategy rely heavily on correct supply, demand, and inventory-based management. Forecasting engines with machine learning offer an entirely new level of intelligence and predictive analysis of big data sets that provides an endless (and constantly self-improving) loop of forecasting, overhauling the way we manage inventory and the way we create new strategies for our industries.
4. Chatbots for marketing and operational procurement
The increasing popularity of chatbots is making it harder to ignore how AI is helping shape not just the daily logistics but also the B2B marketing landscape and operational procurement for supply chain industries.
A chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation using auditory or textual methods. It communicates with your customer inside a messaging app, like Facebook Messenger, and is similar to email marketing without landing in an inbox. Mimicking a human conversation, chatbots currently allow for increased customer engagement through messaging app technology that isn’t yet saturated with marketing. They are just one of the many ways to integrate AI and marketing.
There’s so much more than these 4 examples to consider when discussing AI and the supply chain: prediction of delivery arrival times to the warehouse and to the customer, cargo sensors, automated purchasing, financial applications…the list literally may be endless.
Choosing what to focus on for this article, and more importantly, for all supply chain and logistics businesses, is a tough decision, but one thing is clear: in the “arms race” to leverage AI in SCM, some will come out on top and some will be left behind.
This post originally appeared on EBN Online.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Feb 27, 2019 | Blog, Marketing, SEO, Website Development
SEO helps your website rank higher in search engine results pages. Here are the SEO basics to get your website performing better and in front of your target audience.
Highlights:
- SEO stands for search engine optimization — that much has stayed the same. It refers to techniques that help your website rank higher in search engine results pages.
- SEO works by optimizing a website’s pages, conducting keyword research, and earning inbound links.
- To rank well in the long term, build your SEO marketing strategy around topics, not keywords.
Video transcript:
I’m Jennifer Yim and I’m the Director of Strategy here at Fronetics. Today’s topic is SEO. SEO seems pretty straightforward. You pick a few keywords and your page is magically optimized for SEO, right? Not quite.
People understand the basic principles of SEO, but a lot has changed in the last decade. Let’s take a look at the basics to get your site ranking higher.
SEO stands for search engine optimization — that much has stayed the same. It refers to techniques that help your website rank higher in search engine results pages. This makes your website more visible to people who are looking for solutions that your brand, product, or service can provide by search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.
What hasn’t stayed the same are the techniques we use to improve our rankings. This has everything to do with the search algorithms that these companies constantly change.
SEO works by optimizing a website’s pages, conducting keyword research, and earning inbound links. You can generally see results of SEO efforts once the webpage has been crawled and indexed by a search engine.
There are a ton of ways to improve the SEO of your site pages. Search engines look for elements including title tags, keywords, image tags, internal link structure, and inbound links.
Search engines also look at site structure and design, visitor behavior, and other external, off-site factors to determine how highly ranked your site should be in their results pages.
To rank well in the long term, build your SEO marketing strategy around topics, not keywords. If you do that, you’ll find you can naturally optimize for important keywords, anyway. Understanding your target audience and what interests them is key to attracting relevant visitors to your website through search engines.
For more tips on improving SEO and building your digital marketing strategy, visit us at Fronetics.com.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Feb 12, 2019 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Transparency in your supply chain through social media outlets can give a look inside your company in a way that your customers are craving.
Highlights:
- Customers have been demanding more visibility into supply chains of the products they purchase.
- Through social channels like Twitter , LinkedIn , and Facebook, companies are greatly enhancing their two-way communication with customers and sharing information with their stakeholders.
- The top reason that supply chain companies are choosing to participate in social media is to increase the visibility of their company.
Supply chain management is such a complicated web of factors that most companies choose to keep operations behind the scenes and unveil a finished product with an intense marketing roll-out.
But what if that’s backwards and an outdated approach to marketing? (Hint: It is.)
The complexity of supply chain management
There is no question that SCM can be deeply and frustratingly complex. Consider TechTarget’s definition of SCM: “the broad range of activities required to plan, control and execute a product’s flow, from acquiring raw materials and production through distribution to the final customer, in the most streamlined and cost-effective way.”
With so much intense analysis at every step, the details your supply chain management (SCM) team considers can seem endless, and the impressive knowledge they hold is certainly not something most people can understand.
Or can they? What if that mindset – the one that thinks that your SCM is so complex that it wouldn’t interest or be able to be grasped by your customers – is wrong?
In fact, what if it’s so wrong that you are missing something important? Customers today want to understand your supply chain.
Transparency in your supply chain
A common misconception is that most customers are interested in a final product. Of course, your final product better be outstanding, but there are other factors fueling today’s buyers, business-to-business (B2B) customers included.
For a few years now, customers have been demanding more visibility into supply chains of the products they purchase. For example, they want to ensure sustainable practices around the earth’s scarce resources, to know where their food is sourced, and to confirm ethical pay and conditions for any laborers involved. B2B buyers are no exception. They want their vendors to be more than just a final product too, and are constantly searching for value outside the sales funnel.
Transparency with social media
What if you shared what fueled your daily SCM decisions with your customers, stakeholders, and suppliers? Not every last complex detail…but some of them, and the intangibles too:
- What drives SCM decisions besides cost?
- Who is your SC team?
- Where are you sourcing?
- Why do you do things as you do during production?
Transparency of SCM through social media outlets can give a look inside your company in a way that your customers are craving. Through social channels like Twitter , LinkedIn , and Facebook, companies are greatly enhancing their two-way communication with customers and sharing information with their stakeholders.
Of course, the benefits of social media to SCM don’t stop there.The supply chain needs social media for enhanced customer communication, increased industry education, and an ability to socially monitor the market. Social media has the capability to empower your supply chain in multiple ways.
According to a survey we conducted, the top reason that supply chain companies are choosing to participate in social media is to increasing the visibility of their company (95%). Don’t simply focus on your final product(s) and leave out your supply chain! When you make your supply chain transparent to your customers and stakeholders, everyone wins.
This post originally appeared on EBN Online.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 6, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Digital natives are changing the landscape for B2B purchasing. Here’s what you need to know about the new B2B buyer.
Long gone are the days of men and women sitting around a conference table listening to a sales pitch over a free lunch. Today’s B2B buyers are younger, more technologically savvy, and more independent — they’re a generation of digital natives. And they’re making waves across the B2B buying landscape and changing how marketers must work to reach new customers.
Who are digital natives?
The term digital native describes a person that grows up in the digital age, rather than acquiring familiarity with digital systems as an adult. So, unlike the previous generation, digital natives grew up understanding how to work a computer and a mobile phone instead of picking up these skills (slowly) in our 20s, 30s, or even later.
Having grown up in a time of rapid technological advancement, digital natives are very comfortable online. These skills have carried over to their professional careers, as millennials descend upon the workforce. Organic searches have become the starting point for researching products and services, instead of looking for specific brands.
Ch-ch-changes
This new reality means marketers trying to reach new customers must make big changes in the way they target and engage today’s buyers. Marketers have had to shift their focus from outbound marketing to inbound tactics, like content marketing, to engage and connect with their target audiences.
Here’s what you need to know about digital natives and how their tech-savvy ways have changed the B2B purchasing process.
Infographic: How digital natives are changing B2B purchasing
(Made with Canva)
Final thoughts
With so much content available on the internet, first impressions are everything. Your website needs to be informative and visually pleasing. Your social media posts need to be engaging. Your blog posts need to be enlightening. Make sure your online presence accurately depicts who you are as a brand and what you stand for. Digital natives will be more likely to find and connect with you.
Have digital natives had an impact on your business? Tell us about it.
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by Jennifer Hart Yim | Oct 12, 2017 | Blog, Data/Analytics, Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chain
Shippers should be tracking these last-mile metrics to drive down the high cost of last-mile logistics.
This post comes to us from Adam Robinson of Cerasis, a top freight logistics company and truckload freight broker.
Using technology to improve last-mile metrics is essential to driving last-mile costs down, but how do shippers know if the technology is helping or hurting? The answer to this question lies in using last-mile metrics to track key performance indicators and target levels of service to ensure accountability, visibility and continued reduction of costs in last-mile delivery.
A recent survey of customer service experiences, reports DC Velocity, revealed many retailers feel current technologies do not address their customer service needs, and as few as 3 percent of retailers cite full support as part of their current systems. Unfortunately, history teaches shippers that reducing costs means cutting customer service, but integrating customer service data into delivery operations and transportation systems is key to increasing a brand’s value. In fact, 72 percent of survey respondents believe it is very important to improve access to data for in-transit shipments, which includes last-mile delivery. Essentially, shippers need to track these 11 metrics.
1. On-Time Deliveries Are King of Last-Mile Metrics
The number of on-time felt or late deliveries are more important than any other metric tracked in last-mile logistics. These metrics provide a quick yes or no analysis of the effectiveness of your last-mile logistics strategy.
2. Fuel Consumption Rates
Last-mile metrics involving fuel consumption rates can vary and depend on the preference of the company, but how fuel consumption rates are calculated can greatly influence whether a driver is saving or wasting fuel.
For example, overall fuel consumption costs may be lower, but interval-based fuel consumption rates could show consistent, stopping and starting patterns that do not coincide with existing routes and drive up fuel costs. As a result, fuel consumption rates should be calculated by averaging the total fuel costs per driver, all drivers, per delivery vehicle and per route.
3. Last-Mile Vehicle Capacity Used Versus Available
Last-mile logistics should also consider the capacity utilized against the available capacity in all last-mile delivery vans. This metric is calculated by dividing the available capacity by the total capacity. Excess available capacity rates allude to poor loading procedures or the need to consolidate routes. The same calculation is used to calculate capacity used, dividing the capacity used by total capacity.
4. Planned Versus Actual Mileage
Planned versus actual mileage last-mile metrics are calculated by dividing the actual mileage per vehicle, driver, or route by its own planned mileage. Higher actual mileage rates reveal problems with route planning or unforeseen detours to route schedules.
5. Driver Hours In-Motion and Stationary
In-motion and stationary driving hours are expenses in last-mile logistics, and, unless your company employs a fully autonomous and drone-assisted delivery network, stops are necessary. However, the amount of stops and hours of both in-motion and stationary position can help measure performance of drivers. Excess stationary hours or excess in-motion hours are calculated by dividing the total amount of time drivers spend on a route by the number of hours in motion and the number of hours stationary.
6. Cost Per Item, Per Mile, and Per Vehicle
Last-mile metrics should track the cost per item, per mile, and vehicle associated with a specific route and the company as a whole. As a result, shippers should average the total costs per item for a given route and for the company’s shipments over a set period. The same average process should apply to both mile and per vehicle metrics, too.
7. Number of Stops
Last-mile logistics and metrics should also track the number of stops per vehicle. This is important to monitoring fuel costs, but it can also allude to poor route optimization practices. In other words, vehicles with a high number of stops should be reevaluated for ways to improve route schedules.
8. Average Service Time
The average service time metric can be complicated because it involves different data to calculate, depending on the source of an order. Most commonly, it is calculated by dividing the total service time at the store by the total number of deliveries. In other words, what is the average amount of time spent per order between the store, the warehouse, and other pre-shipping processes?
9. Customer Complaints
The need to manage customer service and address customer complaints leads to another metric in last-mile logistics, reports Talking Points With Adrian Gonzalez. What is the total number of customer complaints, and how do they stack up against the total number of deliveries? This metric is calculated by dividing the total number of deliveries by the total number of complaints received.
10. Order Accuracy
Order accuracy is calculated by comparing the known inaccuracies of orders against all shipped orders. Since some consumers may never report inaccurate orders, it is difficult to track a specific order inaccuracy metric. Instead, shippers should track order accuracy rates by dividing the total number of shipped orders by the number of orders not subject to customer service disputes, calls or complaints.
11. Damage Claims
A final last-mile metric to track is also about problems with orders: damage claims. Shippers should track the number of incoming damage claims against the total number of shipments. This is calculated by dividing the number of damaged claims by the total number of shipments. The resulting value is the percentage of damage claims in decimal form.
Using Metrics, Shippers Can Improve Last-Mile Logistics
Metrics allow shippers to understand the ins and outs of last-mile logistics, and metrics provide a means of measuring the performance of last-mile logistics plans against actual processes and their associated costs. As a result, shippers can make changes to their operations to improve last-mile services through last-mile metrics, and knowing more about last-mile needs is key to providing more than just the standard last-mile delivery options.
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