Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Logistics
Artificial intelligence or machine intelligence is the type of intelligence that is depicted by various machines and is different from the natural intelligence that is usually being displayed by the human beings or animals (Russell & Norvig, 2016, p. 2). The significant research of the artificial intelligence is the specific study of various intelligent agents. The device that is responsible for perceiving the environment and taking relevant actions for maximizing the chance of properly achieving the various goals and objectives. Often a machine mimics the cognitive functions, which the human beings are associating with all other human beings like problem solving or learning (Raza & Khosravi, 2015, p. 1371). The scope of the artificial intelligence is that since the machines have become extremely capable of solving problems, there could be a removal of human intelligence from the technological world (Michalski, Carbonell & Mitchell, 2013, p. 4). The capability of the modern machine for the artificial intelligence mainly includes the successful understanding of human speech and also competing at the high level within the strategic game system.
This report explains the importance of artificial intelligence and its applications on Mega World Ltd. These applications of artificial intelligence are responsible to provide better efficiency and effectiveness to the business processes of any specific organization. Innovation is highly enhanced with the applications. Since, Mega World Ltd is a logistics company and they have thought of including artificial intelligence applications in their business, this report will be demonstrating three recommended applications with proper details.
Mega World Ltd is the largest company of logistics in Australia and it was established around twenty years earlier. More than 200 employees are working in this organization and their specific head office is in Sydney, Australia. This particular organization is eventually working in various states in Australia and in also other parts in the Oceania region. The company of Mega World Ltd provides various end to end logistics solutions to the client companies. They provide services to the industries of mining, manufacturing and warehousing. Some of these client companies have decided to provide the logistics solutions on the basis of artificial intelligence. Thus, Mega World Ltd has also thought of expanding the business in the next five years in the world after properly involving several services on the basis of this artificial intelligence. CEO of Mega World Ltd has given the responsibility to the ICT Head for investigating all of the technologies and applications and how much these applications are beneficial for this company.
Recommended AI Applications for Mega World Ltd
Artificial intelligence is defined as the specific simulation of several procedures of human intelligence with the help of machines, majorly the computerized systems (Nilsson, 2014, p. 2). This particular technology often is responsible for bringing major and significant changes within the organization that has adopted the artificial intelligence or the applications and services of artificial intelligence. Learning without any type of supervision needs the significant capability for the proper identification of patterns within the input stream. However, learning with necessary supervision includes the numerical and classification of regressions. The proper analysis is easily done with the help of artificial intelligence and hence the complex problems are eradicated in the process (Wenger, 2014, p. 1). It is the most advanced technology of information technology. Decision making is extremely easier with the presence of artificial intelligence in any business.
The artificial intelligence based applications provide major advantages to the organizations that have implemented them. Within the various AI based applications, five distinct applications are listed below:
- Intelligent Robots: The first and one of the most important applications of artificial intelligence technology. The intelligent robots usually work according to any specific program and could be remotely controlled by any specific human operator. These human operators usually keep a major track of the intelligent robots since they comprise of the range of numerous sensors that are majorly attached to these robots (Webber & Nilsson, 2014, p. 5). The powerful onboard processors as well as the specific memory capacity can easily keep a steady track of the activities, executed by these intelligent robots.
- Expert Systems: The next significant artificial intelligence based application is the expert system. This is a complete computerized and digitalized system, which has the ability for emulating the basic abilities like taking relevant decisions. Moreover, the several complex problems can also be resolved by taking the help of logic reasoning by the knowledge bodies (Steels, & Brooks, 2018, p. 2). Moreover, there are two sub systems of the expert systems, which are knowledge based and inference engines. Various approaches could be easily dictated by inference engines and are driven by the antecedents. There is a stronger impact of the expert systems within a logistics company.
- iMachine Vision: The third important application of the artificial intelligence is the machine vision. The application majorly deals with various procedures of systems gaining high level of understanding from the digital images and videos (Hovy, Navigli & Ponzetto, 2013, p. 21). The logistics industry has to track their products each and every time so that there is no chance of product loss. With the help of machine vision system, the position of the rival companies will also be tracked and the issues related to competitive advantages would be resolved.
- Speech Recognition System: The fourth popular application of artificial intelligence would be system of speech recognition. This particular application is highly required to reorganize all types of phrases and words that are spoken in one specific language (Alrajeh & Lloret, 2013, p. 1). Clarity is the major requirement of this software and for this purpose; it utilizes two types of algorithms. Both of these algorithms enhance the performance and hence accuracy as well as speed is increased.
- Optical Character Recognition System: It is the respective mechanical transformation of product images and then the identification of printed texts to the machine encoded texts from the scanned documents or from the subtitle texts. These documents or texts are superimposed over these images (Bennett & Hauser, 2013, p. 11). This particular application of optical character recognition is utilized for data or information entry and hence is being utilized within the machine procedures of machine translation, text mining and cognitive computing.
The above mentioned five different types of artificial intelligence applications could be extremely vital for the business of Mega World Ltd (Yampolskiy, 2013, p. 392). However, amongst these five, there is a proposal for three applications that would helpful for them for them to expand in the coming five years. These are given below:
- Intelligent Robots: The first and the foremost application of artificial intelligence is the intelligent robots. These types of robots are extremely efficient and effective for logistics industry. The systems could easily solve the complex problems within restricted realms (Seo, Kim, Kisi & Singh, 2015, p. 230). The most basic idea for the artificial intelligence based robot is that it could easily gather the facts regarding a specific situation with the help of sensors as well as human inputs. The computerized system present within the robot would be comparing the information with the stored data or information and would also decide what this information will be signifying.
- Few advantages of this application are listed below:
- Extremely Effective: The major advantage of an intelligent robot is that is highly effective and efficient and hence could easily solve the complex problems without incurring many complexities.
- Quite Fast: Intelligent robots are quite fast and they could learn anything from the surroundings without proper training (Chou & Bui, 2014, p. 440). The sensors, present within those intelligent robots provide such advantage of easy learning capability.
- The demerits of intelligent robots are listed below:
- Extremely Expensive: The first demerit of intelligent robot is that it is of quite high price and hence often becomes an issue for the users to afford these.
- Constant Support of Human Experts: Another important demerit of this application is that it requires a constant support of the human experts. Without this support, it is not possible to use this application (Raza & Khosravi, 2015).
The ethical factor of this application is that since it is a robot, there is no chance of unethical act, unless and until it is being executed by a human being. The social factor is that these robots could easily interact socially with the rest of the world and is friendly in nature. The legal factor is that it is completely legal as it would be reducing the human effort to a high level.
- type of computerized application that is usually designed to solve the various complex problems in any specified domain (Jurafsky & Martin, 2014, p. 3). The main feature of the expert system is that it is responsible for providing the most accurate as well as relevant information and this type of information is being securely stored within the computer based memory. The logistics company gains significant advantage from involvement of expert system.
- Fiew advantages of this specific application are listed below:
- Extremely Consistent: The application of expert system is extremely consistent and hence the data does not get altered under any circumstances. Since, the expert systems are on the basis of systems, the logic or the knowledge is better programmed by this (Renzi, Leali, Cavazzuti & Andrisano, 2014, p. 410). The entire procedure of decision making becomes easy with this application for the logistics company.
- Easier Data Access: Expert systems allows easier data access to the respective users and these data could be easily extracted or taken from the database with the help of this particular application.
- Few disadvantages of this application are listed below:
- No Integrity in Data: The first and the foremost disadvantage of the expert system is that there is no integrity as well as confidentiality of the information or data. This allows the attacker to access this confidential data and also alter the data whenever required.
- Consumes High Amount of Resources: Another demerit of this expert system is that it is responsible for consumes excess amount of resources. The most important resources that this application consumes are costs and time.
The ethical factor is that since decision making process is easier, the decision could never be unethical (Chou & Bui, 2014, p. 445). The social factor is that expert systems could easily take the place of a human expert. The legal factor is that the data is not altered many often.
Computer or Machine Vision: The next suitable or recommended AI based application for Mega World Ltd is the presence of machine or computer vision. The automatic analysis and the inspection of these applications like the process control, automatic inspection and robot inspection. The logistics organization can consider this efficient or effective application of artificial intelligence.
- Few advantages of this application of machine vision are listed below:
- Highly Cost Effectiveness: Machine vision is absolutely cost effective and hence could be easily afforded by everyone (Yampolskiy, 2013, p. 391). Moreover, the overall implementation costs are also high in machine vision.
- Highly Persistent: The computer or machine vision is extremely persistent to any type of non destructive characteristics for higher speed. For this specific advantage of higher persistence, the overall efficiency of the application is incremented to a higher level and users are benefitted from it.
- Some of the disadvantages of this specific application are listed below:
- Constant Need of Expert Labours: The most significant demerit of this application is that it needs the expert labours constantly for the successful implementation of machine vision. Without the requirement of expert labours, it is not possible to execute this application.
- No Sensitivity: The next disadvantage of the machine vision is that it does not have any sensitivity and hence is completely emotionless. Due to this lack of sensitiveness, often major issues arise for the users and they are unable to track or use this particular application of computer or machine vision.
Robots for Manufacturing and Warehousing
The most significant ethical factor of machine vision application is that it is highly efficient and effective application (Raza & Khosravi, 2015, p. 1353). The social factor is that since it is extremely fast, it is being utilized by everyone. The legal factor of machine vision is that highly persistent in comparison to other applications of artificial intelligence.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it could be easily concluded that AI or artificial intelligence majorly emphasized on the creation of several intelligent machines, which would work as well as react similar to human beings. Few of the activities that are involved within the machines with artificial intelligence are learning, planning, speech recognition system and problem solving. It eventually creates the intelligent machine and hence has become one of the most important parts in the technology industry. The basic issues of this technology of artificial intelligence for the programmed computers are reasoning, perception, problem solving, planning, learning, knowledge and ability for manipulating or even move objects. The machines related to artificial intelligence could react or act like humans only when they are carrying abundant data related to the technological world. This artificial intelligence should have the proper access to all types of objects, properties, relations and categories within each of them for the successful implementation of knowledge engineering. The initiation of common sense, problem solving and reasoning power within the machines is considered as one of the most difficult as well as tedious task. The above report has properly explained the importance and impact of the significant applications of the technology of artificial intelligence on the famous logistic company, known as Mega World Ltd. They provide several logistics services to the clients. This report has described five AI based applications and within these five applications, three are recommended for this organization, with their advantages, disadvantages from the ethical and logical point of view.
As the Mega World Ltd has undertaken the major decision, of the involvement of several services and applications of artificial intelligence; within their business. However, some of the major recommendations are to be considered even before the implementation of this technology. The three distinct recommendations are listed as follows:
- Utilizing Expert System: The first recommendation for the organization of Mega World Ltd is to utilize expert system in their business. The most significant benefit of this particular application would be that they would be providing the major ability to take the most relevant and suitable decisions and not involving the human experts. This hence reduces the effort of human beings to a greater level and is extremely helpful for solving the several complicated problems by involving logical or basic reasoning.
- Using Intelligent Robots: The second recommendation for the company of Mega World Ltd is the significant utilization of intelligent robots for their business. Most of the robots usually work as per the program or are even controlled by the human operator. There is a range of sensors that is attached to these intelligent robots and these sensors help to reduce the human effort to a high level. Mega World Ltd can get various advantages in their company if they will implement intelligent robots.
- Utilizing Machine Visions: These are the most effective and efficient machines that help to store real time data for all organizations. The high level data is gained from digital images and videos. The numerical data is required for taking decisions and Mega World Ltd will be benefitted.
Reference List
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