Drone as our future courier
Say goodbye to conventional couriers
Abstract
Drone is a unmanned and remote controlled aircraft. In this era of industrial revolution 4.0, drone was used by some cargo company and replacing their conventional courier. Drone are considered better in all aspects compared to conventional courier that using human labor. The use of drones as couriers is also supported by renewable technologies that make drones more effective and cheaper. Technological disruption was a certain thing, it was only a matter of time until finally the conventional courier positions that used human labor were replaced entirely by a machines.
Preface
Competition for freight forwarding services continues to progress along with the rapid development of the internet. In the end, the goods delivery service company must continue to innovate so that it is not lose against other companies. New innovations that are considered more efficient will certainly replace the old ones, especially in the field of freight forwarding.
Goods delivery service companies generally use human labor conventional couriers to deliver their goods. But recently there has been a “crazy” innovation from a retail / goods delivery service company called Amazon, a company started by the world’s richest man in 2018, Jeff Bezos. An innovation from Amazon is starting to replace conventional couriers with couriers using drones. Amazon has started introducing its newest package delivery drone recently.
Amazon huge leaps, which is plans to replace human with drones as a courier surely will affect the whole aspect of goods delivery services. Although some people still consider this to be something that has not been tested and could lead to chaos, this innovation is strongly supported by important figures and expeditionary business actors who want efficiency in the field of freight forwarding and logistics.
The using of drones as a courier is not only considered faster and more efficient, but expected will be cheaper courier services someday. The use of drones as couriers will also be supported with renewable technologies such as the internet of things, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. With this renewable technology, there is no need for human role in the delivery service system (Galloway, 2017). That means, it is only a matter of time to see the role of humans being completely replaced by technology in the field of goods delivery services.
The use of drones as couriers will also be supported with renewable technologies such as the internet of things, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
As we know that technology is dinamically changed, technological disruption was a certain thing. Indonesia goverment itself admit the massive impact of this technological disruption. With the huge technology development, Indonesia Ministry of Manpower, Hanif Dhaikiri reveal that about 56% world labor force is predictly will disappear within next 10–20 years (Baderi, 2018). This clearly describe the “fate” of conventional couriers in the future.
Based on the description above, this article is focused on innovations that replace conventional couriers with drones as logistical support with how this can happen and what is the urgency of humans in dealing with rapidly developing technological advances. The purpose of this article is to remind the readers of the tremendous impact that has been due to technological developments, especially in freight forwarding services.
The Using of Couriers on Freight Forwarding Services
Drone is a unmanned and remote controlled aircraft. Drones were originally used for purposes in the military field, such as reconnaissance devices and weapons delivery devices. But lately, drones are also used as a means of sending goods and logistics that are usually done by humans.
The use of drones for freight forwarding services was a revolutionary innovation. Since 2400 BC, the goods delivery industry that usually use animal or human as couriers has finally been replaced by a machine.
With the replacement of conventional couriers with drones, it is not only considered more efficient, while PT Pos Indonesia’s Vice President Couriers and Logistics Product Development, Djoko Suhartanto, assessed that the use of drones can change the business process that has been carried out conventionally or tiered and expensive to become simpler, faster, and cheap. Garuda Indonesia Director of Cargo and Business Development Mohammad Iqbal also claimed that logistics costs using unmanned aircraft can be reduced by up to 30 percent, including Air Cargo (SMU) (Azka, 2019).
Drones used for goods delivery services are also not only remotely controlled. With many new fields and development of computer science such as artifical intelligence, machine learning, internet of things, and so on, it is also possible for drones no longer need pilots for logistics delivery and to fully move on their own without needing to be controlled (Galloway, 2017).
Towards the Extinction of Conventional Couriers
The various kinds of advantages from drones on freight forwarding services compared to human labor surely will make the workforce eliminated. Apart from more benefit for retailer / expeditioners, the use of drones will also greatly benefit service users. The more technology developed, the cheaper drones will be used, which will completely eliminate human labor as conventional couriers.
It surely will take a long process for humans to be completely replaced by drones, but sooner or later it will. More and more companies are taking part in implementing this because better efficiency is also one of the factors supporting this disruption. Even in Indonesia itself, goods delivery services using drones have begun to be implemented by a well-known Indonesian startup, BukaLapak (Farras, 2019).
The application of drone technology as an introduction to packages in Indonesia is proof that the fact that Indonesia is a developing country is no longer relevant for us to be calm in facing this situation. This, of course, must start to be considered by goods delivery service business actors, especially those in Indonesia. How they will deal with technological disruptions that impact their human labor force.
The reality that will be faced by conventional couriers is already in sight. Therefore, of course there is an urgency that must be done by humans, especially all parties in the shipping service business, regarding how policies must be implemented so that the problems of human workers as conventional couriers who are on the verge of ‘death’ can be minimized and what solutions can be done. The human workers as conventional couriers must also find the best solution for themselves, because nothing can be blamed for the technological disruption.
Conclusion
Courier was a fundamental thing for freight forwarding services. Companies always finding itself the most effective, efficient, and profitable for delivering goods. At the same time, techonology is also constantly envolving, so that make it possible for a company making more revolutionary thing such as replacing conventional couriers that using labor force with drones.
With the many advantages of using drones for couriers make perfect sense for a day when conventional couriers that use human labor in their systems will be completely replaced by machines. This will be the end of the horn for them, the human workforce who will be replaced by these flying machines. The disruption caused by this innovation is something that cannot be avoided, actors in the shipping service sector should issue a policy to minimize the impact of this disruption for the human itself. Seeing this phenomenon, we humans in general can also take lessons from the tremendous technological developments that can replace our jobs by always learning new things.
References
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Galloway, S., 2017. EMPAT BESAR. In: Z. A. Kyle Scallon, ed. Jakarta: PT Gramedia, pp. 36–37.
Team, F. L., 2014. parcelcompare.com. [Online] Available at: https://parcelcompare.com/blog/general-news/a-brief-history-of-the-courierindustry [Accessed 12 November 2019].
