Optimizing business efficiency and improving supply chain collaboration are two goals that seem to be at the top of every fleet manager’s to-do list. While there are many ways fleet managers can move closer to achieving these admirable goals, one of the most pragmatic ways to become more efficient is to embrace intelligent automation technology.
Intelligent automation technology can improve fleet performance across every quantifiable metric. Dynamic technology has advanced exponentially in recent years, and it appears to hold the key to proper end-to-end logistics optimization.
What is Intelligent Automation?
Intelligent automation refers to the process of business leaders automating traditionally manually performed tasks and core processes through the means of leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies.
By using intelligent automation solutions, organizational leaders can reduce the workload on their staff and free up team members to engage in more value-oriented tasks, improving organizational efficiency and enhancing profitability.
Intelligent automation is a broad field that comprises several subfields, such as task automation. Intelligent automation may involve automating any number of complex or simple business processes, while task automation focuses solely on automating redundant tasks.
6 Ways Intelligent Automation Improves Business Efficiency
Intelligent automation technology allows your business to improve efficiency along several different metrics. Specifically, using this technology:
1. Saves Money
The most obvious benefit of intelligent automation technology is that it saves your business money. When you can automate redundant, labor-intensive processes, you no longer have to assign these tasks to human workers. Instead, AI technology completes these tasks with lightning-fast efficiency.
Over time, you can significantly reduce your total labor hours, translating to major cost savings that can free up funds for other endeavors. You can then use these extra funds to invest in additional technologies, give your staff raises or pursue other growth opportunities.
2. Saves Time
If you’re tired of losing hours of your week to menial, tedious tasks, that is another great reason to invest in intelligent automation technology. When you replace antiquated processes with AI-powered alternatives, you will regain control of your week and save hours. The time saved may total dozens or hundreds of hours per week across the organization.
The time-saving benefits of AI technologies also work to reduce the amount of strain placed on your staff, leading to improved morale and a stronger workplace culture. Your staff will ultimately be more productive, miss workdays less often and be more likely to develop a sense of loyalty toward the company.
3. Leads to Fewer Errors
No matter how skilled your employees are, they will occasionally make mistakes. It’s an inevitability, as we’re all human. When these mistakes are discovered quickly, they will probably only result in a minor inconvenience for your business. Bit when a mistake goes undetected for hours, days or even weeks, the impacts can be significant.
The good news is that you can significantly reduce the frequency of data input errors by leveraging AI technologies and automation tools. Robust automation software will rarely, if ever, make mistakes when processing your data.
4. Amplifies Existing Jobs
Intelligent automation technologies not only reduce the workload on your staff, but these solutions also amplify the capabilities of individual team members. When your staff has access to dynamic automation tools, they’ll be able to work faster and more efficiently, and within weeks of implementing automation technologies, you will see your team’s productivity skyrocket to unprecedented levels.
5. Facilitates Workflow Customization
If you want to truly optimize the efficiency of your business, you need to form workflows that are tailored to the unique needs of your organization. Intelligent automation technologies enable you to craft customized workflows that align with your needs, challenges and goals.
Customizable workflows will help you access real-time insights about your fleet, assets and other resources so you can optimize your management processes, which leads to enhanced collaboration between your company’s various teams and departments. When your teams can effortlessly communicate and share information, they support one another and increase overall business productivity.
6. Allows You to Effectively Predict and Adjust Production
One of the most significant efficiency benefits of automation technologies is that these solutions enable you to tap into all of your business data at once. With AI and ML technologies, you can analyze business data to derive real-time insights about market conditions, demand for services and other aspects of your business. You can then leverage these insights to predict demand effectively and adjust production accordingly.
The analytics capabilities of automation tools lead to reduced resource waste and optimized asset utilization rates. You can more efficiently allocate resources based on real-time demand data and ensure that you have the assets in place to effectively serve your clients.
Improve Efficiency by Combining AI with Other Tech
Automation technology is an excellent tool for optimizing your fleet management capabilities. You can magnify the impacts of your automation efficiency tools by leveraging these additional tips for improving fleet management.
If you want to elevate organizational efficiency and agility even further, you can invest in modern business shipping tools to optimize every facet of fleet and asset management. Cumulatively, automation efficiency tools and other technologies will pave the way for the growth of your organization.
FAQ
Intelligent automation technologies improve efficiency by streamlining route creation, automatically assigning loads to drivers, notifying fleet managers when deliveries are made and sending updates to customers when their packages have arrived.
Artificial intelligence technologies are used to conduct advanced analytics of important business data, reveal actionable insights about the state of an organization and streamline routine, day-to-day processes.
Artificial intelligence technologies are poised to reshape the transportation industry in every way imaginable. From the way that drivers plan deliveries to the coordination of inbound and outbound shipments, all aspects of the transportation sector will be influenced by AI.
Sign up for a FreightWaves e-newsletter to stay informed of all news and trends impacting supply chain careers and operations.