The Japanese electronics company has announced the marketable development of software with which decision-making processes in the warehouse are no longer made by humans, but by artificial intelligence. The new software for optimizing work processes in the warehouse is based entirely on computing technology instead of on middle decision-making managers. The technology called AI (Artificial Intelligence) is capable of learning and has the task of tracking the behavior of employees in the warehouse. It should analyze their approaches to problem-solving work steps and, in the event of an effectiveness-increasing effect, pass these on to the rest of the workforce as a benchmark. According to Hitachi, the use of the new technology should lead to productivity increases of eight percent compared to conventional warehouse management systems.
AI works like this:
Process analysis and recommended action:
Although they often operate within a rather rigid framework of instructions, warehouse employees are constantly seeking opportunities – even the smallest – to improve their workflows. This is partly to speed things up, partly to simplify them. AI collects information and evaluates the efficiency of individual approaches. Promising solutions are automatically adopted and then passed on to all employees as a new rule.
Responding to Short-Term Changes – From Big to Small Data.
Conventional software systems analyze data based on the incoming, broad stream of big data. This makes it possible to predict standard developments. However, it becomes more difficult when it comes to appropriate responses to short-term events (e.g., severe weather that disrupts truck arrivals and departures, or the sudden surge in demand for rainwear resulting from bad weather). Here, AI's approach goes deeper, as its innovative filtering function can also provide answers to these situationally arising events based on employee behavior.
Quick decision without human influence
The intelligent software structure allows AI to efficiently filter and analyze relevant information from the wide data stream and take action without prior feedback from a human supervisor; i.e. issue instructions to employees. Since AI does not have to coordinate with a human counterpart, the system can react much more quickly and implement the necessary measures more quickly.
According to Hitachi, warehouse logistics is just an initial area of application for AI. In the future, the clever “robot” could also be used in corporate areas such as finance, transport or production.
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