March 2016 9logisticstechoutlook.comInnovation and staying ahead of the curve are the keys to successnotified of new loads and suggested delivery routes. They had to accept the load and communicate with all the parties involved in the shipment while on the road. Pickup and delivery notifications had to be sent out and verified. To solve these problems, logistics companies invested into proprietary solutions that allowed them to address these needs. Today, many of these products are being replaced by mobile apps that run on a wide range of devices. This reduces companies' reliance on proprietary solutions and provides a number of efficiencies, but this direction also requires a significant investment in mobile application development and related capabilities.One of the most challenging problems in the logistics industry is keeping track of individual shipments through each leg of their journey, from pickup to delivery. Customers increasingly want to know exactly where their shipments are at any point of time. Carriers need this information not only to present to customers but also to properly coordinate each leg of the transit process. Whether the shipment is in transit, split up between multiple trucks or sitting somewhere in the yard, both carriers and customers need to know its exact state and location. In the past, drivers and dock workers would enter this information manually via either handheld devices or computer terminals. Today, this information is captured and transmitted automatically through the use of RFID and similar devices. Increasingly, technologies such as IoT, mobile and cloud are being used to capture real-time location of each shipment down to the pallet or even the individual package level.Staying Ahead of the FutureThe logistics industry pushed the boundaries of technological innovation because of necessity. It was ahead of its time in a variety of categories. The convergence of many different technologies brought it to where it is today. Yet, this is not the stopping point for the industry, the apogee of its maturity and growth. Much more complex and challenging problems are just around the corner.Like many other industries, logistics is at an inflection point today, in which the amount of data is exploding and the demands from customers are changing daily. Many new transportation modes are being created and explored. Drones and self-driving vehicles soon will be reality. Increased complexity in the types of transportation options will drive logistics companies to mix and match various modes of transportation to more efficiently serve their customers. This will require increasingly sophisticated systems that can build and optimize delivery routes based on all available options. Predictive analytics will become more heavily utilized to predict where demand may be coming from based on various geopolitical, meteorological and economic conditions and automatically optimize capacity and rates based on this. Customers will continue to require greater and greater levels of integration, communication and automation. According to Gartner, algorithms, not people, may be solving these types of problems in the future. Innovation and staying ahead of the curve are the keys to success. Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, believed that "innovation is seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." Forward-looking logistics companies understand this and are looking to solve tomorrow's challenges today. Technology convergence is the key to success. Whoever can figure out the right recipe for bringing all the disparate technologies together in an effective manner will be in the best position to win.
< Page 8 | Page 10 >