Impact of Artificial Intelligence in the Warehouse Industry

Artificial Intelligence has extensive abilities to impact many aspects of our daily lives. With the growing development of new and improved technologies we are beginning to be surrounded by speech recognition software such as Google Assistant and Siri, autonomous robots and self-driving cars.

The warehouses around the globe have seen significant changes and automation processes implemented over the past decade. Within the warehouse industry, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the capacity to have a substantial impact on improving and adapting processes from:

performance through the use of robots,
machine learning to monitor inventory statistics and,
productivity increases by following orders from voice recognition.

Robots

Robots are able to undertake most tasks within a warehouse environment. In short, their abilities range from loading and unloading items from a pallet to moving throughout the warehouse without collisions.

Voice Recognition

Voice Recognition software has the ability to teach machinery and equipment within the warehouse to follow an order with little effort, commonly known as hands free experience.

Machine Learning

Machine Learning is the application of AI that gives systems the capability of learning from data to provide estimates. Consequently, it is important that businesses are utilising this data throughout the decision making process. Machine learning has the ability of collecting information on a regular basis as to frequency of item ordering, stock levels and shipping. Above all, conducting predictions is possible – on the statistics for the frequency of how often to re-stock and the codes that need restocking.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Just as any employee’s performance is governed by a given set of measures. Likewise, the same principles applies to Artificial Intelligence. For instance, the warehouse KPIs can range from:

Order fulfillment accuracy
Employee efficiency
Inventory accuracy
Order fulfillment time.

Warehouse Industry & Artificial Intelligence

In conclusion, automated processes and procedures are taking over many industry’s including the warehouse industry. With the rise of eCommerce, the warehouse is requiring faster and more flexible systems to keep up. Above all, by obtaining data from AI it can provide suggestions and improve processes to optimise the running of each warehouse.