AI Spotlight

USING AI TO OPTIMIZE CONTAINER AND REUSABLE PACKAGING MANAGEMENT

AI optimizes processes at a container terminal

Lift vans are wooden crates, and they have been the workhorse of the moving industry for the worldwide shipping and storage of boxed household goods for the last 50 years. Discover how AI algorithms enable dispatchers to have the right number of lift vans ready when needed, avoiding shortages and overstocking.

Key Benefits

  • Adaptive Planning: Enables dispatchers to adjust to seasonal and ad-hoc order changes quickly.
  • Cost Savings: Reduces inventory and transport costs through optimized asset allocation.
  • Carbon Footprint: Avoids overstocking and asset loss – reducing the demand for wood and wood-based materials.

Use Case

Summary

  • A relocation service provider implemented our AI-powered software to manage and optimize their global pool of lift vans. While the company offers global relocation services to their customers, dispatch optimization is done a regional level.
  • In many regions, lift vans are spread across a four-digit number of warehouses, depots, and agency locations from which dispatchers can book assets.
  • Our AI software works as a co-pilot for the dispatchers, allowing them to take decisions that lead to a cost-optimized balancing of assets across the network.

How It's Done

  • The AI software analyzes current stock balances (how many lift vans are in transit, how many are loaded, how many are empty?), planned and approved orders (where and when do you need how many lift vans), as well as expected order volumes.
  • Based on this analysis, our software creates projections on a business level. These projections are used on a regional level to propose cost-optimized balancing decisions to the dispatchers which they can approve or modify.

Did You Know?

  • In uses case like this, AI can help to reduce asset loss by 5 to 25 percent, increase asset cycles by 25 to 500 percent, and avoid unnecessary repositioning and emergency transport events by up to 45 percent.
  • Container and other reusable packaging pools become more agile and resilient against changes and ad-hoc events that demand complex real-time decisions.

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