The AI Revolution: Logistics industry embracing AI to stay competitive
Central Ohio logistics companies are using artificial intelligence to increase efficiency, mitigate labor challenges and grow their businesses.
Officials from Ease Logistics and FST Logistics, two of the region’s largest privately held companies, said they have embraced AI. And while both are cautious about how the technology is used, they believe it is important to remain competitive.
“It’s no secret that the logistics industry can be a little bit behind when it comes to technology because there are a lot of legacy processes, systems and tools that can be a challenge to AI utilization and acceptance,” said Erica Seymour, director of technology at Ease.
“But it’s important we stay ahead because our customers expect it. It’s up to us to adopt new technology.”
Ease has three main pillars for leveraging AI: imaging, carrier vetting/onboarding and “bidding bots.”
The bots, which the company has been using for a couple years, help the company focus on growing volume by remaining price competitive. They use AI and machine learning to tailor price points for each customer.
“It challenges us to find optimal prices for our customers,” Seymour said.
The software helps improve billing accuracy and offers solutions to improve those processes, while carrier vetting and onboarding technology helps Ease bring in “safe and reliable carriers who live up to our accreditations,” she said.
Future AI-related technology that Ease plans to use includes appointment automation for customer orders and virtual assistants that can keep tabs on customer needs by managing potential issues before they arise.
“At the end of the day, AI helps us customize service offerings to our customers,” Seymour said. “It allows us to stay flexible in order to meet and exceed our customers’ needs and requirements.”
FST Chief Technology Officer Jason Sorenson said his company is “just starting to dip our toes” into AI, but they’ve seen early success via a new partnership with Lully AI. FST uses Lully’s orchestration platform to optimize e-commerce warehouse operations.
The technology groups orders together to help employees pick items more efficiently. In the past, a back-office employee would send orders as they came in, and workers would have to pick them up individually across the warehouse. By grouping orders together in what Sorenson described as a “wave,” pickers can grab more products in less time because travel across the warehouse is reduced.
Sorenson said tracking data has shown that the number of units picked per hour has increased about 30% since FST adopted the technology. This not only helps the company fill more orders in a quicker timeframe, it also cuts down on labor costs and fills gaps in workforce availability.
“Labor is our single largest expense, so being able to control labor cost with AI is huge for us,” Sorenson said. “With the labor pool that’s out there now and with the seasonality of our business, it can be a struggle, so the more we can do to leverage technology like AI, the better off we’ll be and the more competitive we’ll be in the marketplace.”
FST is looking to adopt more AI technology in the future, both externally and internally. The company wants to develop its own AI-driven tool to load trucks more efficiently. By developing a planning tool to maximize each truckload, Sorenson said FST will benefit from increased profitability and customers will see costs go down.
Though the company is in the early stages of developing and instituting AI in its operations, Sorenson said he expects the technology to expand across the board.
“It’s going to take time to find the right fit in each segment of our business, but overall I think we’re going to be pretty heavily invested in AI for the long term,” he said. “I can see it making its way into pretty much every corner of our business.”
Read the full article: Columbus Business First