by Michael Wu is GM and President of Phison Technology Inc. (USA), a leading provider of NAND controllers and NAND storage solutions.
As the transportation and logistics industry adapts to the evolving digital transformation landscape, solid state drives (SSDs) will play a key role in managing data storage, simplifying data management and transforming workflows.
The transport and logistics sector has changed significantly due to Covid-19, evolving consumer trends and expectations. These changes, which include skyrocketing online shopping and demand for ultra-fast shipping, have only been exacerbated by the pandemic, which has disrupted supply chains by creating congestion at ports around the world, leaving container ships stranded at sea. and forcing manufacturers to cancel shipments. .
Ushering in a new era of digitization operations
Traditionally, transportation and logistics companies have relied on manual processes for data entry, timing, reporting, and more. Today, however, these companies are trying to digitize operations and integrate previously isolated volumes of data. While these industries have lagged behind other sectors in digital transformation, transportation and logistics companies have caught up. The World Economic Forum estimates that digital transformation in the logistics sector alone could reach a value of US$1.5 trillion by 2025.
Here are just a few of the transportation and logistics capabilities that will be made possible through digital transformation:
• Predictive analytics: Big data has enabled advanced analytics that use AI algorithms and machine learning (ML) to proactively identify equipment and vehicle maintenance needs before failures occur, monitor traffic congestion, and redirect vehicles to more optimized driving routes, optimize delivery schedules, identify which customers need more personalized support for a specific issue, and predict which consumer trends will be hot soon.
• Internet of Things (IoT): IoT devices are essential for digital transformation because they are the tools for collecting the data needed for analytics and ML applications. Cameras, sensors, GPS trackers, RFID tags, barcode readers and other connected devices are being used to improve asset tracking, fleet management, more efficient deliveries and much more.
• Autonomous Machines: While it may still be a few years before self-driving cars are perfected, self-driving machines are already making big strides in transportation and logistics. Package delivery drones and warehouse order fulfillment robots are changing the way warehouses and shippers work, and autonomous trucks could soon revolutionize long-distance trucking through reduced freight costs, more fuel efficiency. and reduced delivery times.
• Automated customer service: When support tools like chatbots and intelligent digital assistants are automated, transportation and logistics companies can provide a much higher quality of service to customers without additional staff. Immediate, personalized, real-time support will significantly improve the customer experience and can be the game changer that drives brand loyalty and a competitive advantage.
The possibilities for transportation and logistics are endless, but the real question now is whether transportation and logistics companies are ready for the digital revolution.
The value of NAND Flash-based SSDs in transportation and logistics solutions
Transportation and logistics companies can benefit greatly from increasing the performance of their data storage and management systems. With better performance, they can extract value from their data faster and make more informed decisions that keep operations and processes streamlined and efficient.
These companies can identify maintenance issues with faster data analysis and processing, respond to customer needs in a more timely manner, ensure each route is optimized for traffic flow, and avoid congestion and fulfill orders faster and more accurately. Notably, they can automate more operational tasks, process and pack orders faster.
Modern high-performance storage features NAND flash memory and SSDs that can provide high-speed data reads and writes. NAND flash is especially useful for AI and ML workloads. While many people think that AI requires data storage with high input/output operations per second (IOPS), the system’s ability to handle random inputs and outputs (I/O) is what really matters. AI and ML applications need large amounts of data, and their workloads are highly random and read intensive.
Once the AI or ML application is trained on large datasets, the algorithm goes into analysis mode and works with even more data to detect patterns and provide insights. NAND flash is also ideal for this phase because it provides the necessary low-latency, high-bandwidth memory.
With NAND flash memory, NVMe SSDs can deliver the speed and efficiency these intense and complex workloads demand, enabling data analytics, AI insights, predictive maintenance, robotic operations, real-time automated customer service or vehicles autonomous deposits. In the transportation and logistics industry, every second counts and every second of delay can have a big impact on the overall schedule and package delivery time. Data input and output should not be a bottleneck in the logistical flow, which is why SSDs play a vital role in the industry.
The future is bright for digital transport and logistics
To meet the requirements of today’s data revolution, the logistics and transportation industry needs to support digital operations and all the applications that go with them. These demands call for robust storage and data management practices, as well as fast, high-performance drives like SSDs that can support the speed of today’s business needs and efficiently streamline large volumes of data. For example, innovations like IoT and autonomous machines require big volumes of data, from GPS trackers and self-driving cars to package delivery drones that are leveraged to improve fleet management, revolutionize freight costs and reduce delivery times.
As transportation and logistics companies look to increase the performance of their data management and storage systems, selecting the right SSD technology provider is crucial to meeting the needs of enterprise applications including high-performance computing, AI and ML platforms, analytics data and much more. Today’s most trusted SSD providers build high-performance SSDs because they understand the requirements placed on modern SSDs and how they can support even the most intense and complex workloads.
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