| | December 20198LOGISTICS TECHNOLOGY: EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES TRANSFORMING THE LOGISTICS INDUSTRY IN 2020By Swapnil Shrikant Bagul, CTO - Head Technology, Writer Corporationn the era of the 4th industrial revolution and data driven enterprises, emerging technologies tend to assure transpar-ent, predictable and reliable solutions for a sustainable business growth, if used appropriately. Though the connec-tivity across devices is a bare necessity and is affordable now, efficiency and availability of connectivity networks across devices and systems is as vital as we need water and electricity for a place called human society to be created. Enterprises are investing into research on new technolo-gies to find the synergy and applicability of the same in their business processes and business management. Cut-ting edge technologies in the space beyond Integrated Applications are Machine to Machine communications, Robots and Cobots, Text, Image and voice processing, wearables and drones, big data and blockchain and sens-ing and responding devices clubbed with pervasive apps are few technologies that can influence the next genera-tion of logistics vertical. Here are some of the applications of similar technologies to different entities of logistics value chain.Huge warehouses paired with complex delivery matri-ces of orders are the causes to increased delivery times and have potential for erring deliveries, if managed manually. Further, acute transparency and predictability of exact time of arrival of shipment is a key to ideal logistics plan-ning and positive customer satisfaction. Moreover, real time monitoring and control of routes taken by delivery vans for security, cost optimization and service excellence are key to the success of the business in today's fast paced world. Internet of Things has several applications to an-swer these questions. Geo Positioning System sensors de-ployed in delivery vans are key for fleet route monitoring and control. Radio-Frequency-Identifiers (RFID) can see various applications right from package tracking upto inward-outward movement in warehouse, multi mapping of ship-ment to vehicle and crew to shipment / vehicle. RFID can also be used to mark the departure and arrival of ship-ment vehicle and also indicating the shipment load in the vehicle. Quality of shipment when untempered, results in positive customer satisfaction and the same can be con-trolled using temperature, load and humidity sensors. That is specifically used in supply chain of raw or ready food and chemical compounds.Maintenance of fleet across the country from mechani-cal and aesthetic purpose is key to success of a fleet man-agers role. Hubs can be enabled with smart cameras that can predict damaged or ageing fleet that might need an overhaul. This technique is already in use in Insurance sec-tor. Further, driver behaviour analytics offered by most of the vehicle tracking vendors today can lead to more insights for an insurance agency during claims settlement or new policy issuance. The same can be an indicator for the fleet management team to identify the errors that can lead to spurt in repair cost.Object Character Recognition using image and text processing and analytics can be used to digitise frequent documents like driving licenses, insurance policies, fit- IN MY OPINIONI
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