Lecture Series: Is AI the New Electricity?

Role of AI in Logistics

Presented at
Asst Prof. Deepankar Sinha AILABS Academy,
Indian Institute of Foreign Trade Kolkata on May 11th 2018

Use and distribution limited solely to authorized personnel. (c) Copyright 2018
• Tesla Car Crash
 The key question

• Is this AI or Automation
 Automation

PREDICT
PREDICT MAKE
MAKE
SOURCE
SOURCE DATA
DATA DECISION
DECISION
&&INFER
INFER

TAKE
TAKE
UPDATE
UPDATE DECISION
DECISION
 AI

PREDICT MAKE
SOURCE DATA DECISION
& INFER

TAKE
UPDATE DECISION
Self Learning
 Supervised Algorithms
• In supervised algorithms, we may not know the inner
relations of the data we are processing, but we do
know very well which is the output that we need from
our model. For example:
• “I need to be able to start predicting when users will
cancel their trip”.
• Notice that the output of we model is already defined:
“will vehicle X cancel its trip”. What we may not know
yet, is HOW to realise which vehicles will cancel. So we
can use an existing set of data to “train” a model into
predicting this particular aspect about our vehicles.
The training of the model
 Supervised Algorithms - Example
• So for example, if we have 10,000 user’s usage history. From these,
maybe 5,000 cancelled and 5,000 have continued with the trip. So
what we can do, is take data from 4,500 users who cancelled, and
4,500 from vehicles which continued (data from 9000 users total).

• Train our model with this data, letting it “see” which cancelled and
which are using it.

• After our model is trained, is ready to start predicting, so now we

can feed our model with the data of the 1,000 users we left out,
except we won’t let the model see which cancelled and which didn’t.

• The model will do it’s best to predict the status of the user, and we
can compare with the real value. If out of the 1,000 users, the model
correctly predicted 891, then the model has a 89,1% accuracy.
 Unsupervised Algorithms
• With unsupervised algorithms, we still don’t know what we want to
get out of the model yet. we probably suspect that there hast to be
some kinds of relationships or correlation between the data we have,
but data is too complex to try to guess.

• So in this cases we normalize our data into a format that makes sense
to compare, and then let the model work it’s magic and try to find
some of these relationships.

• One of the special characteristics of these models, is that while the

model can suggest different ways to categorize or order our data, it’s
up to we to make further research on these to unveil something
useful.

• we can think of it as augmenting our data with information about

inner relationships, but it’s up to we to make sense of this new
information.
 Unsupervised Algorithms - Example
• For example, after processing all the data related to all
our vehicle drivers with an unsupervised algorithm, it
might come up with a way to group wer users into 2
groups.

• After inspecting and comparing these two groups, we

might realise that group A is in a geographic location, and
group B in another one.

• Whether we can act upon this particular segmentation of

the data, is up to we to figure out, and if not, then maybe
we can remove or re-arrange the data about user’s
location to force a different segmentation.
 Reinforcement Learning

• Reinforcement learning is the field that studies

the problems and techniques that try to retro-
feed it’s model in order to improve. In order to
accomplish this, RL needs to able to “sense”
signals, automatically decide on an action, and
then compare the outcome against a “reward”
definition.

• RL tries to figure out WHAT to do to maximize

these rewards, but it does this by itself (no direct
instructions).
 RL: supervised or un supervised
• RL is not exactly supervised, because it does
not rely strictly on set of “supervised” (or
labelled) data (the training set).
• It actually relies on being able to monitor the
response of the actions taken, and measure
against a definition of a “reward”.
• But it’s not unsupervised learning either, since
we know upfront when we model our “learner”
which is the expected reward.
 Vehicle Routing Criteria
• Minimize the global transportation cost based
on the global distance travelled as well as the
fixed costs associated with the used vehicles
and drivers
• Minimize the number of vehicles needed to
serve all customers
• Least variation in travel time and vehicle load
• Minimize penalties for low quality service
 Vehicle Routing Criteria
• Vehicle Routing Problem with Pickup and Delivery
(VRPPD): A number of goods need to be moved from
certain pickup locations to other delivery locations. The
goal is to find optimal routes for a fleet of vehicles to visit
the pickup and drop-off locations.
• Vehicle Routing Problem with LIFO: Similar to the VRPPD,
except an additional restriction is placed on the loading of
the vehicles: at any delivery location, the item being
delivered must be the item most recently picked up.

• This scheme reduces the loading and unloading times at

delivery locations because there is no need to temporarily
unload items other than the ones that should be dropped
off.
 Vehicle Routing Criteria
• Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW):
The delivery locations have time windows within which
the deliveries (or visits) must be made.

• Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem: CVRP or CVRPTW.

The vehicles have limited carrying capacity of the goods
that must be delivered.

• Vehicle Routing Problem with Multiple Trips (VRPMT):

The vehicles can do more than one route.

• Open Vehicle Routing Problem (OVRP): Vehicles are not

required to return to the depot.
 Ontology

• The primary purpose of an ontology is to

document what the symbols mean - the
mapping between symbols (in a computer)
and concepts (in someone's head).

• Given a symbol, a person is able to use the

ontology to determine what it means.
 Ontology

• The main challenge in building an ontology is

the organization of the concepts to allow a
human to map concepts into symbols in the
computer, and for the computer to infer useful
new knowledge from stated facts.
 Ontology

• When someone has a concept to be

represented, the ontology is used to find the
appropriate symbol or to determine that the
concept does not exist in the ontology.

• The secondary purpose, achieved by the use

of axioms, is to allow inference or to
determine that some combination of values is
inconsistent.
 EXAMPLE
• Consider a VEHICLE DRIVER GUIDE that is
designed to find the extent of chaos.
• GUIDE could use such an agent to describe
what kind of situation they want to wait for
the congestion to clear.
• The GUIDE could search multiple knowledge
bases to find suitable SITUTATIONS to notify
users when some appropriate CONDITION
becomes available.
 EXAMPLE
• An ontology is required to specify the meaning of the symbols
for the user and to allow the knowledge bases to interoperate.

• It provides the semantic glue to tie together the users' needs

with the knowledge bases.

• In such a domain, VEHICLES, TREES OR BROKEN LIGHT POST and

PEOPLE may cause congestion. Although it may be sensible to
suggest waiting if it is vehicles or people, it may not be sensible
to suggest waiting if there is uprooted trees or light post or
damaged vehicles.

• Often the boundary cases - cases that may not be initially

anticipated - are not clearly delineated but become better
defined as the ontology evolves.
 AI
• Ability to process both primitive and
structured data and information.

• Ability to learn and update intelligence

• Zero down Type 1 error, reduce Type 2 error

 Capabilities generally classified as AI
as of 2017
• include successfully understanding human
speech,[5]
• competing at the highest level in strategic
game systems (such as chess and Go[6]),
• autonomous cars,
• intelligent routing in content delivery
network and
• military simulations.
Q&A
Thanks