The demand for same/next-day delivery exploded with the onset of the pandemic and businesses have adopted on-the-fly tactics, often disrupting operations. This has resulted in negative impacts on both financial performance and customer satisfaction. Autonomous vehicle (AV) solutions address these pressures at the middle-mile and last-mile delivery levels. Businesses can now take advantage of new opportunities to implement AVs in their supply chain operations. Here are some challenges, and AV solutions to meet them.

Scaling supply operations while facing driver shortages and rising labor costs is a common problem. AVs offer businesses, including retailers and logistics providers, flexibility and additional capacity to better balance supply and demand.

As the supply chain becomes increasingly complex, solving urban middle-mile use cases is at the forefront. Unsustainable stop-gap inventory management solutions can be replaced by on-demand AV operations in middle-mile urban areas, enabling faster delivery without disrupting business operations.

AVs can help to meet current consumer expectations for delivery speed and predictability. Delivery speed increases with AVs operating around-the-clock in middle-mile logistics to rebalance inventory and predictability improves with consistent performance, supporting better route planning and more accurate ETAs.

Improving transparency and traceability across the supply chain is key. AVs are fully connected in real time, providing accurate location information as well as rich data for optimized vehicle utilization, route planning, and overall system performance.

Increasing safety leads to fewer delivery disruptions AVs never get tired or distracted. This greatly reduces the risks to people and property on the roads and protects the integrity of products being shipped. As safety performance improves with AV operations, your company could experience fewer delivery exceptions and a better customer experience that results from more predictable deliveries.

Find out how AVs can bring these benefits to your operations.

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