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【2020 Solutions】 Smart Scheduling for Smoother Rides and Cost Reduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred the popularity of delivery platforms such as Uber Eats and Foodpanda, creating an urgent need for smart dispatch systems. Imagine if drivers could determine from their mobile phones or online platforms where there are no traffic jams, which roads have the fewest traffic lights? AI could help plan the most suitable schedules, significantly improving logistics efficiency and reducing overwork.

With the flourishing of commercial activities, the logistics sector, which provides personnel/goods movement services, lacks smarter scheduling. According to research by the international research organization Gartner, 97% of the global logistics industry does not use optimized software for effective planning.

Smart Scheduling Resolves Stakeholder Pain Points

Let's first understand where the pain points lie among stakeholders in the logistics industry chain?

Employer's perspective: In response to various types of delivery services, especially new types like food delivery, how to increase performance without expanding the fleet size?

Dispatcher's perspective: Vehicle scheduling is very challenging, and the bosses demand increased efficiency, which is difficult to achieve without computers.

Driver's perspective: Poor scheduling by the dispatcher leads to incomplete deliveries or traffic jams, often requiring overtime, or even accidentally running red lights, resulting in fines.

Addressing these issues, Zong Lan-Ken, founder and CEO of Singularity Infinite, states, 'All these problems are classical mathematical problems.' Singularity Infinite's A.I.R Smart Dispatch Cloud Service is a cloud-based software service that resolves last-mile delivery scheduling and routing issues. It addresses daily challenges faced by operators in managing goods, vehicles, and routes, enabling them to handle more orders with fewer vehicles.

Smart Scheduling System Schedule

▲Smart Scheduling System Schedule

Zong Lan-Ken, who specializes in data science solutions for public needs and formerly served as an associate research professor at the Geographic Information Systems Research Center of Feng Chia University, founded Singularity Infinite in 2015. He aims to solve smart mobility issues using mathematics, statistics, and software technology. The company's developed AIRouting optimization technique provides real-time traffic data and dynamic planning to assist operators in more efficient dispatching.

Singularity Infinite integrates real-time traffic and signal information and can handle high-frequency unconventional logistics models, such as gourmet delivery and electric scooter battery swap strategies. For example, electric scooters must replace their batteries after every 50 kilometers. If a scooter runs out of battery, the rider leaves it on the roadside. The scooter operator must locate the depleted scooter and replace its battery. To maintain effective operations, operators must keep the utilization rate of scooters between 80%-90%. For instance, in the Greater Taipei area with 10,000 scooters, maintaining more than 8,000 scooters on the roads at any time is crucial, yet without a smart scheduling system, high utilization rates cannot be maintained. Following the system's introduction by WeMo in 2019, the utilization rate significantly improved by approximately 75%.

Effectiveness of AIR Smart Dispatch Cloud Service Introduction

▲Effectiveness of AIR Smart Dispatch Cloud Service Introduction

AIR Smart Dispatch Cloud Service has effectively increased the utilization rate by 75%

Additionally, in the food ingredient delivery logistics, there have been notable results. Traditional ingredient delivery companies need up to 25 trucks per day to transport fresh ingredients from produce markets, agricultural marketing companies, or seafood markets to restaurants. After introducing the AIR Smart Dispatch Cloud Service, the number of trucks required per day was reduced to a maximum of 12, significantly cutting over half of the truck costs.

Singularity Infinite's team includes experts in mathematics, transportation, and AI technologies. The traffic information used is from OpenStreetMap, supplemented with province-wide real-time traffic flow data to analyze congestion during different periods. Additionally, future plans include using signal timing data to calculate which road segments have the fewest red lights and shortest red durations, to plan optimal routes, reducing the burden on logistics operators and drivers.

Singularity Infinite's team, the picture (third from right) shows Zong Lan-Ken, founder and CEO of Singularity Infinite

▲Singularity Infinite's team, the picture (third from right) is Zong Lan-Ken, founder and CEO of Singularity Infinite

Besides logistics and transport, AIR Smart Dispatch Cloud Service can also be applied in container yard stacking, factory machine scheduling, project management, hospital bed allocation or operating room scheduling, and flight gate assignments among other areas.

Singularity Infinite employs two business models: One involves customizing exclusive scheduling systems for clients, paid monthly/yearly on a pay-per-use basis; the other involves system integration followed by revenue sharing with the client. Fundamentally, Singularity Infinite provides APIs for integration, allowing operators to develop their own apps or provide services through websites.

In the entrepreneurial process, what are the most challenging aspects? Zong Lan-Ken believes that entrepreneurship is a continuous series of multiple-choice questions, simplifying numerous questions into fewer choices, further simplifying each option to choose the correct answer. Previously, it was mistakenly believed that 'technology can solve problems', but it was discovered that efficiency issues can not be solely resolved through mathematics, as the world does not operate this way. In this ecosystem, 'who' will stop adoption due to 'whose opinion'?

For example, in the logistics industry, the most critical aspect of transporting goods is the driver, who needs rest. If the system is introduced, and scheduling becomes completely transparent, drivers do not get time to rest. The wrong introduction makes the system a tool for exploitation. Hence, it is essential to consider human aspects, integrating rest times into the mathematical model to gain driver support. Also, by knowing beforehand that a driver's home is near a train station, scheduling the last stop near the station lets the driver return home right after delivery. These examples can significantly increase driver acceptance and greatly enhance the success rate of project adoption.

Zong Lan-Ken finally points out that data collection is crucial to the success of traditional industries' digital transformation in the future. Without data, there is no data science, and no AI. Singularity Infinite holds patents for automated data collection and recording, which can reduce data collection costs. At the same time, the collected and stored data's high usability will serve as an important foundation for future intelligent logistics.

「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only. Translation date:2024-05-19」

Recommend Cases

【解決方案】2秒鐘完成結帳動作 Viscovery AI影像辨識助攻智慧零售
Complete checkout in 1 second, Viscovery AI image recognition assists smart retail

Artificial intelligence AI has gradually changed the way various industries operate in recent years However, most of the work is still done by humans, with AI playing a supporting role This has led to emergence of the term "AI Copilot," which stands for "AI-driven tools or assistants" that aim to assist users in completing various tasks and improve productivity and efficiency The concept of AI Copilot comes from the role of "co-pilot" During flight, the co-pilot assists the main pilot in completing various tasks to ensure flight safety and efficiency In fact, there have been signs of various "machines" beginning to play the role of "copilot" in different fields since the Industrial Revolution, assisting humans in completing heavy physical and repetitive tasks, greatly improving factory production efficiency, and driving rapid economic development Following the advancement of computing equipment and breakthroughs in machine learning, deep learning, and image recognition technologies, the concept of AI Copilot has gradually taken shape The development of AI Copilot marks the transition from "machine-assisted to AI-assisted" Early robots could only complete preset repetitive tasks, but today's AI copilot can learn and adapt to new environments and tasks, and continuously optimize its performance in practical applications This transformation not only changes human-machine interactions, but also has a profound impact on various industries The application scope of AI copilot covers various industries, including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, education, retail, etc, and are everywhere to be seen Application of AI copilot in the retail industry AI image recognition checkout In the retail industry, the application of AI copilot has begun to show concrete results Take Viscovery's AI image recognition checkout system as an example This system is a type of AI copilot model that helps store clerks speed up checkout or assists consumers in simplifying the self-service checkout process The store clerk needs to scan the product barcodes one by one in the regular checkout method If a product does not have a barcode, such as bread and meals, the clerk needs to first visually confirm the items, and then input them into the POS checkout system one by one Based on actual measurements at a chain bakery, it takes 22 seconds for an experienced clerk from "visual recognition" to "entering product information of a plate of 6 items into the checkout system" New clerks may need even more time In addition, according to a Japanese bakery operator, it takes 1 to 2 months to train employees to become familiar with products Now with AI image recognition technology, store clerks let AI handle the "product recognition" step, and AI will play the role of copilot, quickly identifying items within 1 second, speeding up checkout to save 50 of checkout time, and optimizing customers'shopping experience The time cost of training employees to identify bread can also be effectively shortened Even for products with barcodes, AI can quickly identify multiple items in one second, which is more efficient than scanning barcodes one by one The self-checkout system "assisted" by AI image recognition allows consumers to successfully complete shopping without the help of store clerks, eliminating the trouble of swiping barcodes or searching for items on the screen, which improves the shopping experience In a time when store clerks are hard to hire due to labor shortage, this also helps stores reduce operating costs AI quickly identifies multiple checkout items in just one second Source of image Viscovery Recently, startups dedicated to developing AI image recognition checkout solutions have emerged in various countries The most lightweight solution currently known is in Taiwan It can be immediately used by installing a Viscovery lens and a tablet installed with Viscovery AI image recognition software at the checkout counter to connect to the store's existing POS checkout system There are various integration methods, including plug-and-play and API solutions integrated with the store's POS system Viscovery AI image recognition system can be painlessly integrated with the store's existing POS system Source of image Viscovery Example of AI image recognition checkout Currently, the Viscovery AI image recognition system is being used in bakery chains in Taiwan, Chinese noodle shops in Singapore, micromarkets in department stores in Sendai, Japan, and Japanese bakeries and cake shops Over 7 million transactions were completed through this AI system, which identified more than 40 million items These use cases demonstrate the extensive application of the Viscovery AI image recognition system in the retail industry In the future, the company will continue to explore the various possibilities of using Vision AI in retail and catering nbsp The Viscovery AI image recognition system is already being used in bakeries, cake shops, restaurants, and convenience stores in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan Source of image Viscovery

這是一張圖片。 This is a picture.
AI Smart Health Prevention Plan

Herji Ltd held an interactive teaching session with AI storybooks at the 'Taiwan Early Childhood Development and Remedial Association Taitung Office', allowing children, teachers, and parents to engage in immersive educational experiences AI-generated children's educational storybook materials AI Learning Platform In recent years, changes in the social structure of Taiwan, combined with experiences in hospital emergency departments, have often led us to overlook the depressive symptoms exhibited by adolescents, resulting in tragic incidents of self-harm or even suicide among children A significant part of children's depression stems from their academic performance, with parents worrying about their children's future competitiveness, thus placing a lot of pressure on children who perform poorly academically In a family with two children with the same genetic background and provided with the same resources for growth, we often find that the second child's academic performance is not up to par, with poor grades, an inability to concentrate in class, and even lacking the patience and perseverance to finish reading a comic book or playing a video game We have been exploring why these differences occur and discovered that these issues often arise from undiagnosed learning disabilities during early childhood Due to environmental factors, children with delayed learning abilities are often not acknowledged by over 80 of parents who are reluctant to seek treatment for their children, primarily fearing that their child will be labeled as delayed As a result, the child's learning ability is hindered from an early age, with their academic struggles increasing as they enter primary and secondary school, leading to greater academic lag, frustration from parents, struggles from the child, and increased family disputes If tutoring does not yield effective results, expenditure without achieving positive outcomes often leads to further family conflicts, creating a vicious cycle that accumulates a lot of negative emotions in children during their developmental process, which in turn affects various factors impacting their health In reality, the main reasons behind a child's poor academic performance, inability to learn, lack of interest in learning new things, or even developing health-impacting psychological conditions, actually stem from accumulated learning delays during early childhood The period before the age of six is considered the golden window for treating learning delays If these can be identified and addressed during this time, there is a chance that the child's learning abilities can be greatly improved10The industry's current pain points are as follows 1Lack of methodologies for assessing learning abilitiesLack of databases for sample comparisons in the market 2Traditional parental misconceptionsFear of labeling and treatment delays for mild to moderate cases 3Lack of therapeutic materials and toolsShortage of therapeutic storybooks and series courses This project will develop a national talent development support system, utilizing AI Technological development of a system for assessing children's learning abilities that supports parents in safeguarding their children's health from the start of learning ability testing, offering early detection and treatment In the future, all Taiwanese children, regardless of background, will be able to establish a healthy foundation in early childhood, growing up to become valuable assets for national development 2、 As proposed in this planAIApplications and explanations 'Child Language Ability'AI'Analysis Model' This model quantitatively analyzes 'the condition of children's use of Mandarin' when 'expressing an event' Scenario Preschool teachers guide children in narrating storybook contentAITools analyze the sentences used by children to describe storybook content, applying statistical algorithms for quantitative analysis Analysis indicators include 'sentence type' and 'lexical items' Analysis aspects include correctness of sentence structures, diversity of vocabulary, quantity of vocabulary used, and accuracy of vocabulary usage Application Comparative analysis between an individual child and peers' language abilities can offer more detailed language skills teaching by preschool teachers Techniques used Chinese word segmentation, Chinese POS tagging, Chinese syntactic rules analysis algorithm, and quantitative analysis algorithms Tools usedChinese word segmentation tools, POS tagging toolsChinese POS Tagging Tool 3、 Expected Industrial Value Establish a learning ability assessment and support system, through therapeutic storybooks and courses Collaborate with kindergartens to develop learning ability bases, preventing children from being stuck at the starting point Alongside parents, protect children's health starting with learning ability testing, backed by a robust database, allowing parents to identify early any delays in learning, helping children regain their learning abilities 4、 Expected Industrial Benefits Economic Benefit and Future Spread and Impetus By supporting children with delayed learning abilities, enhancing their learning prowess through this project, these children serve as the future of our nation and can thus significantly contribute to national talent development Furthermore, the purpose of establishing a learning ability development base is to help reunite children with their parents, increasing their interaction time, allowing the children to move beyond mere one-dimensional interactions 3C This facilitates two-way interactions between the child and parents, potentially impacting children who may have been otherwise delayed in developing their capabilities due to environmental factors 「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-11-15」

【解決方案】瑕疵辨識率達百分百 耐銳利科技獲面板大廠青睞
Defect identification rate reaches 100%, Nairi Technology is favored by major panel manufacturers

On the machine tool production line, there are some slight differences in the first step of assembly Accumulated tolerances will cause the assembly work to be repeated, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, resulting in shipment delays that will impact the company's reputation Narili Technology Company focuses on the field of smart manufacturing and provides various AI solutions It uses machine learning models to inherit the experience of old masters In the CNC processing machine assembly and casting process, it uses AI to analyze production line data, accurately adjust various data, and improve Production accuracy is 25 This AI production line data analysis system is called "Master 40" by Huang Changding, chairman of Naruili Technology It is the most evolved version of the master plus artificial intelligence It has been used in machine tool processing factories with remarkable results In addition, Nairi Technology used AI defect detection technology to participate in the 2021 AI Rookie Selection Competition of the Industrial Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, assisting AUO in advanced panel image defect detection, with an accuracy rate of 100, and won the award Assisted panel manufacturer AUO to solve problems with 100 accuracy in defect detectionHuang Changding further explained that during the production of general panels, edges and corners are There may be defects in the corners Although the defects are visible to the naked eye, AOI is often difficult to identify, causing the detection error rate to often exceed 30 Therefore, re-inspection must be carried out with manpower to improve the accuracy rate However, in response to the demand for a small number of diverse products and insufficient manpower, using AI detection is indeed a good method Nairui Technology, founded in 2018, has been able to win the favor of major panel manufacturers with its AI technology in just three years In fact, it has been honed in the field of CNC machine tools for a long time Tang Guowei, general manager of Narili Technology, pointed out that the top three CNC machine tool factories in Taiwan hope to introduce AI into the two production lines of assembly and casting Among them, on the assembly line, in order to maintain the accuracy of assembly, every part of the component is designed Tolerances are designed During assembly, each component is within the tolerance However, the cumulative tolerance still fails the final quality inspection and must be dismantled and reassembled This is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also causes waste "After entering the production line, I realized that some masters have accumulated a lot of experience and are good at adjustment After his adjustment, the accuracy rate has improved a lot and the speed is faster" On the contrary, the new engineers did not Based on experience, it takes a long time to adjust and may not pass the quality inspection The yield rate of Master 40 system has increased significantly from 70 to 95Tang Guowei then said that the original size data set by Master during assembly All were recorded on paper After the information was written, it was stored in the warehouse and sealed No one studied the relationship between the dimensions Narili assists customers in designing the Fu 40 system Through the human-machine panel, the master can directly input the measured dimensions and related data during assembly After collecting data from different masters, AI algorithms are used to analyze the relationship between the data and create an AI model The AI model automatically notifies the operator what size to adjust to, and the quality inspection will definitely pass In this way, the yield rate will be improved It has increased significantly from 70 to more than 95 Narili Technology Company focuses on the field of smart manufacturing and provides various AI solutionsTang Guowei added, assembling the spindle of a CNC processing machine It took four hours In the first step, the machine made measurement errors, including vibration, temperature, speed, etc that were out of range It had to be dismantled and reinstalled, which took another four hours How to adjust after disassembly depends on the experience of the master At first, the master may have done the best assembly method based on experience, but the error rate was also 30, and the assembly took several days With the assistance of AI masters, the assembly time only takes half a day, and the yield rate reaches over 95, saving a lot of time and manpower "Use the AI model of machine learning to collect the experience of all the masters and provide it for AI learning The first step is digitalization, and the second step is knowledgeization This is the transformation of the enterprise "An important key", Huang Changding believes that Narili Technology is an important partner in the transformation of traditional manufacturing from automated production to digital transformation In addition, another industry that Naili Technology focuses on is the smart car dispatching system of the leading brand of elevator manufacturers The so-called car dispatch referring to the elevator car means that if there are more than two elevators, group management is required In the past, car dispatching was based on fixed rules If the elevator was closer to the requested car, that elevator would be automatically dispatched On the one hand, it did not take into account that dispatching a car if the elevator was called too many times might make other people wait longer The previous vehicle dispatching model did not take into account the usage characteristics of the building, resulting in a lot of waste For example, in an office building, there are peak hours in the morning, lunch break, and afternoon after work AI smart car dispatch can be flexibly adjusted according to off-peak and peak hours, increasing the efficiency of car dispatch, reducing waiting time, and reducing wasted electricity Introducing elevator smart dispatch to improve transportation efficiency and have environmental protection functionsHuang Changding added that just like the previous traffic lights at intersections, the system has already The number of seconds to stop and pass on highways, sub-trunks and small streets is programmed Smart traffic lights are now used to flexibly adjust waiting times to make road sections prone to congestion smoother Using AI to learn usage scenarios and introducing a smart dispatch system into elevators will improve transportation efficiency and make it more environmentally friendly In addition to introducing smart elevator dispatching, Nairili also introduced AI into the smart production and shipment scheduling system of elevator factories Elevator factories often cannot accurately estimate the customer's elevator delivery date For example, office buildings or stores must be completed to a certain extent before the elevator can be installed on the construction site If affected by unexpected factors such as delays in the customer's construction period, the elevator factory will often be idle or the schedule will be difficult to arrange Tang Guowei pointed out that generally those who understand the progress of client projects may be from business or engineering, but overall, the accuracy rate of shipments is only about 60, which means that 40 of them will not be shipped as scheduled Therefore, if the shipping schedule can be accurately estimated, the production line can be freed up for emergency orders or other product production needs The AI smart scheduling system will analyze past shipment data, about 20-30 parameters such as climate, distance between the factory and the construction site, and customer credit, and put them into the AI algorithm to accurately predict whether shipments can be made as scheduled goods Huang Changding also specifically stated that the machine learning of Naili Technology is not ordinary machine learning, but also incorporates various calculation methods such as traditional image processing technology and statistics Only by being very familiar with the domain knowledge can we make good products AI models are also where the company’s competitiveness lies He emphasized that the data that general SaaS platforms can process is very limited, and the accuracy rate has increased from 70 to 75 at most Naili’s strength lies in AI algorithms and machine learning, and it must be coupled with in-depth industry knowledge to produce output Good AI model Narili Technology started with the AI project, gradually deepened the technology, chose to start with the more difficult tasks, and accumulated rules of thumb It is expected to develop SaaS services this year 2022, based on customer needs starting point, gradually gaining a foothold and becoming an important partner in smart manufacturing The picture left shows the general manager of Naruili Technology Tang Guowei and Chairman Huang Changding right「Translated content is generated by ChatGPT and is for reference only Translation date:2024-05-19」