Natrio Asia Pacific is proud to host a thriving Graduate Program, and our grads recently impressed us with presentations on the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the logistics industry. Each presentation took such a diverse and interesting view on AI and its application that we couldn’t resist sharing some of these up-and-coming individuals’ ideas with you.
Read on for a snapshot of the key takeaways from each presentation.
Dylan reckons less double handling of data
Dylan looked at what AI could do within his division, Accounting and Finance, and suggests that in the near future, AI could assist with the following tasks:
- Data entry and categorisation
- Bank reconciliation
- Fraud detection
- Financial reporting
- Tax preparation
Outside of Finance, Dylan suggests some other tasks AI will be able to complete will include integrating software, helping to hire new employees, minimising human and computer interaction and increasing interactions between people. His focus is on how we can use AI to enable people to focus on value adding tasks that require ‘human thinking.’
Looking at the unknown risks that could be associated with AI, Dylan acknowledges that giving AI all the account rules and regulations, world maps, city plans, container numbers and routes might have some unintended consequences, or as he puts it more concisely: “Pretty scary, ay.” But ultimately, the goal is that AI will help businesses to replace certain admin jobs, and shift to jobs that enhance the business, working to generate more profits to the business, and, optimistically Dylan hopes that those profits could go into more employee benefits and opportunities.
Declan’s Operations Overhaul
Declan took a very practical approach to how AI could improve the admin tasks of his day-to-day role right now. We learned about the number of containers he helped move around the world for Natrio Global Logistics clients (thousands!) and how each one requires multiple manual entries of data (nightmare!) Instead, Declan suggest that with AI’s help, these processes could be improved by:
- Automatically updating container details in the database
- Integrating with other systems (i.e. booking systems, client systems)
- Providing automated and timely reporting
- Keeping accurate business records
With the improvements and efficiencies in the process, Declan can then focus on activities that will help drive the business further, such as identifying further process improvements, ensuring top level customer communication and service and supporting his broader team.
How AI helps Cindy & Safety
Cindy looked at how we could leverage AI to improve safety within workplace operations. Some of the areas of opportunity include:
- Identifying potential hazards and risks
- Creating virtual simulations of dangerous work environments
- Using cameras to detect the correct use PPE and ergonomics
- Heat mapping and fatigue monitoring
The advantages of incorporating AI included reducing human error and risk, 24/7 availability and cost reduction. Cindy also highlighted that the disadvantages might be a lack of improvement with experience, ethical problems and a lack of emotion and creativity.
Leading the way for many of us, Cindy is already using AI in her personal life, such as:
- Chat GPT as a ‘work assistant’
- Grammarly as a writing assistant
- Duolingo’s chat bot to help with language-learning
Cindy’s parting words of advice are that: “AI frees humans up to do work they’re better equipped for, such as creative and empathetic tasks, by taking over repetitive or dangerous tasks.”
Where there’s a Will there’s a way
Will helped us understand the capabilities we could expect from AI, including:
- Providing customer support and answering FAQs
- Generative and report writing
- Research and analysis of scientific data
- Creating imagery
- Operating lawsuits
- Running social media profiles
Will is also an early adopter of AI. He currently uses it to help with school report writing, developing a weekly planner, drafting emails at work and checking spreadsheet data. The limitations Will is experiencing currently include the limited knowledge and access (i.e. Chat GPT only has information up to 2021 and cannot access the internet at present). He finds that it needs to be monitored, requires context and has a limited processing capability. He notes the concerns over security and the ability to jailbreak the programme.
Having said that, Will suggests there are ways we should consider implementing AI now, such as improving existing processes (i.e. email) and helping to train the workforce.
Angus (or is it?)
Most of our grads leveraged at least one form of AI to create their presentations, but perhaps Angus took it the furthest, creating a video and voiceover primarily via AI. It’s worth a watch at least for the first bit for an entertaining take on presenting AI… by AI. Some of the key benefits of using AI (as identified by AI) included:
- Inventory optimisation and demand forecasting
- Logistics optimisation to reduce turnaround times and increasing customer satisfaction
- Predictive maintenance to reduce downtime and improve asset utilisation
Luckily the AI seemed to have enough (dare we say) self-awareness to highlight its lack of empathy and emotional intelligence, as well as contextual understanding. We’ll let you make up your own mind about this one – the video Angus commissioned / prompted is available below.
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