Hello and welcome to the very first intelligent logistics podcast brought to you by the experts at position imaging, I'm your host, Hillary Kennedy with market scale. And joining me today is Ned hill, the CEO of position imaging. I want to give you some background on our very first guest. Ned hill leads position imaging innovations as a forward thinker, applying computer vision and advanced tracking technologies to today's retail challenges, such as buy online, pick up in stores. He's the inventor or co inventor of over 30 patents in technology areas, including radio tracking and a.I., with a focus on computer vision and machine learning. And because of his extensive expertise, Ned is the perfect person to address today's topic. And the focus of today's episode is to learn about implementing intelligent logistics because innovative technology, it needs to be embraced as things move into a newer, faster pace direction. So, Ned, I'm so glad you could be on the show and speak with us today. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. OK, so before we jump into how technology is evolving in the logistics arena, tell me a little about who position imaging is and what your company does. Sure so at our core with or core DNA, we are a tracking technology company. That's how we got started. And that's sort of the vision for how we are unique in this marketplace. And so we have been the creator of some of the most advanced radio tracking technologies. Now eBay's computer vision tech tracking technologies, with the intention of sort of shedding light on visibility of the largest exchange rate last mile from all the way to z, providing that additional visibility of packages or really any moving part with really unique tracking technologies can take a lot of the friction of the whole process. So that's sort of as a core. That's who we are. And now we're just sort of looking to expand our technologies into various points along the chain. Well, and that's why you're such a great resource for today, because logistics for residential retail and the general supply chain market, it's evolving Thanks to technology. So can you give us some examples of this that you see on a daily basis? Yeah, so, I mean, technology as a whole or they're there to grease the skids on processes like, you know, everything from facial recognition to even self-service checkout. Right that's sort of mundane now. And everybody everybody is sort of used to going to a supermarket and doing self checkout. Well, 20 years ago, that wasn't the case. Right and so you have to have the cashiers, everything else. I mean, this is part of our technology advances. And I think by our unique application of a.I., we're sort of taking it to the next evolution and really changing the script on how we're doing it today, sort of in some ways, muscling product and e-commerce fulfillment in a more elegant, efficient way so that you don't have to you know, you don't have to make people do sort of the mundane processes. You can sort of outsource those to customers. And that's our vision. And that's sort of following in the standard of how these new technologies evolve, like facial recognition or self checkout. Right it's been so great because there are a lot of mundane tasks like return of goods. That's kind of become a major focus because customers are demanding fast and efficient and accurate returns, whether it be for a damaged item or the supplier sent more than what was ordered or it was the wrong item or the customer just didn't want or whatever it may be. So I want you to tell us a little bit about how Final Four delivery is becoming self serving is driving that need for technology, you know, before like a UPS p 1,000 truck or FedEx 1,000 truck. I mean, you think about the logic of sending a huge vehicle, for example, all the way to the final destination. Doesn't make any sense anymore. That's how crowdsourced evolve. And, you know, I'd rather have a Prius coming to my house than a big fuel truck. So as these technologies evolve, you know, it is improving the efficiency of these processes. So, like, final foot is a good example where now you can use even an Uber driver to do your last mile delivery, last final foot delivery, and save on all those resources that you would normally use for a big truck with the same can be said for like bylined pick up in store. I would rather do that myself. I would rather outsource that that labor to the customer who wants to do the quick and easy transaction as opposed to going in and then waiting for and relying on a staff at a retail store, for example, to go find the package and then give it to the customer. And by the time it's all said and done, it's, you know, how many minutes late. So, I mean, I think this is a good way for AI and our technologies to take those friction points out of the whole process and enable sort of a new experience for customers, a new value prop and e-commerce fulfillment operation for retailers and residential magos throughout the whole last mile delivery. And then, as you mentioned, Hillary reverse logistics returns. A lot of times that's a black hole. If you're going to return something, sorting that, organizing that, fulfilling that, that is a tall order for a lot of retail stores and others. And if you have somebody that can give you eyes on that during the whole process, makes the whole process that much more. Absolutely saving a lot of time and money for everybody involved. Now, there has been a current worker shortage and it has companies in all markets kind of finding it difficult to hire employees to service their customers. Does this also play into the need for technology to assist in self-service so those solutions benefit the customer? Yeah, I mean, it's really twofold. On that front. Absolutely it's been a unique post pandemic that there has been a worker shortage and everybody's sort of feeling the pain. And so if you can lean on technology to do some of the tasks that you'd normally need workers to do, of course, it's a benefit. It's a cost benefit to the retailer. It's time benefit for the customer. So it's a great fit. But I think the other unique aspect of using cji to help in that process is I don't want to take a college graduate and put them into just going and returning packages. Right I would for organizing packages. I would rather them help the customer be more human with that customer. And I think it's one of the things that people sort of put their arms up and like, yes, there's a worker shortage, but we're not here to take jobs. We're here to actually empower staff and retailers to get people more focused on the more human elements of the service that they're providing. And I think that's sort of the double edged sword of what we do. We not only can save cost and add speed, but we can really retool people, repurpose staff to something that's not. So I don't want to be heavy lifting, heavy packages going to hunt. I'd rather be helping that customer get what they really want or find what they really want. And that's, I think, one of the nice things about being able to do what we do. Yes, that's so true because I think all of us have been in a situation where we've been in a store. We really need to talk to another. Human being, but a lot of the people working there are in the back are working on some of those small, mundane tasks that still have to be done. So you're right, that does kind of bring us one step closer to getting that connection that we need from where we're needing that help, needing answers. So we have noticed in the past year that customer loyalty has really changed and the bar is being set really high. It's been raised quite a bit. So what are some ways to ensure customer loyalty since it has gone up in the past year? Yes so one of the things you can do is just work with your customers to make that process easier, faster, more intuitive, efficient, so that they can get on doing other things that mean a good example of that. As a pilot, we ran with Tractor Supply last year, where it was very interesting tractors because we tractor put our pick up center, which is a computer vision based solution that will manage violent pick up in-store fulfillment. They've put it front and center at the front of the store. And we thought, well, I want to put it in the back, maybe because then they're more likely to buy things along their way to go pick up the package that they ordered. Well it was the opposite. We didn't expect this when people came in, they so appreciated the fact that Tractor Supply had put it front and center, made it super easy for the customer. And then they got this really crazy eye based system that makes it so easy. Transaction times of 15 seconds, literally 15 seconds to go in your pocket. You leave that. They really it. So what did that do to fix it? Improve customer loyalty and brand loyalty to the Tractor Supply brand because customers appreciate what they're doing. And we saw that with a 92 net promoter score from the people that participated. But they also sort of paid it ahead, which was another interesting thing where you go in, you think I'm going to grab my package, I'm just going to leave. Well, that's not what happened to about a third of the customers. They took the package and it's sort of like paying it forward. I get this extra time I'm going to go in to see what else I want to buy. And they made additional purchases. So I think showing customers that you're doing it's fun. And it was on a panel, I think it was a couple of weeks ago. And the chief strategy officer for company can't remember at this point, but she called it a happy speed bump. And I always love that because that's exactly what we're doing. It's like if you've got to go through it, let's make it happy. It's a pleasurable, intuitive experience. And customers really it does resonate. And build that brand brand loyalty with these customers. I totally agree. And, you know, you brought up something I think is a really great point about keeping that technology simple for customers to use. So why do you think embracing innovative technology, but keeping it simple is the key to having success in the market today? Well, I think advanced technology, as it evolves, I mean, it really does lend that visibility to the process for retailers, right? But in the end, I don't care what technology it is. A customer doesn't care what technology is. It just needs to be simple and intuitive. And so we spent a lot of time here in our company, refining technologies, advancing technologies, tweaking technologies in a way to give you, as one of the guys, the head of advanced technology for a company was the head of it, like for Apple. And what they called it with an Apple is that that magical experience, sometimes that magical experience is not even knowing you're going through an experience. Right you just go in and you do it and it just magically happens. That's what technology can enable. That's what we are focused on. And I think, again, it doesn't matter what the technology is, it's the way you implement them to provide that seamless, intuitive experience to the customers in a way that makes it feel magic. That's so true because some of the best things are the things that you don't even realize are there, because it's that simple and easy. That's right. That's right. That's right. Well, that this has been a really, really informative. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be on this very first episode. This is a lot of fun. You it's going to be good to good to have it going. And I hope it's informative. People are going to, I think, be surprised at how many different ways you can, you know, technology can help their process. So it's exciting to kick this off. Absolutely well, I want to thank all of you for listening for tuning into this episode of intelligent logistics. If you like what you heard, you can check out more of the show by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify or wherever you like to get your podcasts. We'll be back another episode soon. But until then, I'm your host, Hillary Kennedy.
