Trucking in the 21st Century
The 21st century has long been seen as a time when technology — flying cars and tricorders, moon colonies and household robots — would change our lives. What is often overlooked is the fact that times of technological innovation also can spark disruption and upheaval in long-established industries and companies. It would seem the trucking industry has reached that point.
In its annual State of Logistics Report released last summer, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals observed that the transportation and logistics business is entering a new era. “Disruptive” forces such as the Internet of Things, big data, autonomous vehicles and robotics, and 3D printing, along with operational factors such as increasing regulations, driver shortages, increasing customer and shipper demands, and infrastructure constraints, “will evolve at breakneck speed and threaten to fundamentally change the rules of the game.”
Andrew McAfee, an MIT scientist who studies how technological progress changes business, the economy, and society, observes, “Technology is moving faster than just about anything else these days.” He says you can break the changes down into three main areas:
1. Sensors and electronic control units are now on nearly any piece of equipment. “It’s getting very cheap to do that.”
2. Once you’ve equipped something with sensors or an ECU, it has the ability to provide data. “We finally have real artificial intelligence that can take all that data, see patterns in it, make predictions based on it, and provide another source of intelligence in addition to human beings.”
3. “We now have networks that go all around the world and connect human knowledge, artificial intelligence, and all of this smart equipment,” a phenomenon also known as the Internet of Things.
“The very freight trucks move in certain sectors is changing as new logistics models emerge and gain traction,” says Sandeep Kar, global VP of automotive …Read the rest of this story
