Challenge Accepted – Trends in Logistics 2023
11/29/2023
Modern life is already impossible to imagine without innovation. Artificial intelligence, drones, cloud storage – this will not surprise anyone. It's time for rapid changes in everything. The one who will be able to find a non-standard solution, implement new processes and not lose in quality will win in the market, not losing in quality.
ACEX members told what trends they are introducing into their work to optimize it.
The first trend that everyone will definitely support is environmental sustainability. Unfortunately, logistics and transport are not 100% environmentally friendly.
"Our company is making small contribution to green world too. We focus on using more electronic transactions,", – says Suresh Nadar, director of Unicorn Shipping and Logistics, ACEX in India.
Одной из самых больших проблем в отрасли являются выбросы CO2. На этот сектор приходится около 24% от их глобального объема.
"We use the combination of deliveries of several customers in one transportation, which helps to reduce costs by sharing trucks," , – says Alexey Lipatov, Executive Director of ACEX.
One of the most powerful trends is automation. Robots move goods in warehouses, drones deliver parcels. According to forecasts, by 2026, the global logistics automation market will reach $82.3 billion.
ACEX Alliance members have been using various ways of automating cargo transportation for a long time. For example, printers with the Check Back platform installed. When delivering goods from point A to point B, the system shows the exact time, place and quantity of the transported products. Thanks to the use of platform, ACEX Lithuania was possible to achieve a 3-fold reduction in labeling costs.
Automation in warehouses helps to avoid critical errors. Due to the huge amount of cargo, errors can occur if the process is performed manually.
However, in the cross-border e-commerce logistics business, we have used a new operating system in the warehouse at the destination to simplify the manual process for overseas warehouses service and onepiece shipping service. Because each SKU is small and in large quantities. This requires the use of an operating system to achieve efficient workflow," , – comments Sam Chang, Sales Director of Sky Group, ACEX in China.
Most of the problems of the logistics industry are related to visibility and transparency. The software of ACEX members in India, Israel, Kazakhstan and Russia helps to track the cargo from the moment of order to the actual delivery. Thus, full transparency of the movement of shipments is achieved.
Platforms that show the location of the goods will surprise nobody, but the program that will give the client the opportunity to create their own waybill, air waybill, etc., sounds new. The development of such a platform is currently being carried out by ACEX in Israel.
Artificial intelligence in logistics determines the future of the entire industry. Thanks to it, the productivity of enterprises will increase by 38-40% till 2035.
AI in logistics is a powerful tool when it comes to planning warehouse operations and making decisions in the supply chain. However, despite the ability to generate ideas, it remains only a tool with which these ideas are given.
“Even with the advent of AI and technology, I personally don’t think our industry will be replaced by it. AI by itself cannot generate ideas, rather it remains a tool in which ideas are given. AI cannot by itself solve problems, nor can it be forward thinking, and anticipate risks in a way a person can. It also doesn’t yet have intuition,”, Johnny Jan-Pong Tu, General Manager of ASE Air Sea Express, АСЕХ in Taiwan stated.
In the electronic world, digital duplication of information provides copies of real processes, and cloud technologies combine all the necessary information
Cloud technologies are used by almost all Alliance members from different countries. After the pandemic, almost everyone has implemented the ability to work from anywhere in the world. Reliable security programs allow you to work smoothly without fear of any hackers.
Companies that want to increase the security of transactions and protect property rights use blockchain technology. With it, the entire supply chain is visible, and no one can fake or change the data on their own.
“No matter how the international logistics industry changes, it never changes without its roots. Many workflows at the origin and destination ports still require manual labor to complete,” Sam Chang. is sure.
No matter how the new business format changes, the following three steps are still indispensable:
- Process at departure
- Trunk transportation
- Process at destination
So traditional air and sea transportation of DAP/DDP term, still requires manual connection at every step.
"New technologies, of course, improve the carrier's workflow, but they will not replace manual labor and individual approach to customers in any way. We use the human factor with each client and build more trusting relationships. There is no way technology can prevail here. Attention and efficiency should be based on the human factor, not on artificial intelligence. Only a professional himself will react better and more quickly to solve a sudden problem," , – comments Kamran Aleskerov, Director of AGGL, ACEX in Azerbaijan.
The future has a lot of interesting things in store for us, and who knows, maybe in the near future we will be able to send cargo only by asking Siri about it. Artificial intelligence will calculate the most optimal delivery method, and robots will collect and send the cargo to its destination. But today, all members of ACEX Alliance agree that nothing can replace a person when building relationships with a client and solving unpredictable tasks.