Prepare for the Future of the Shipping Industry

Breaking into any industry can be hard. We are finding more and more competitive job markets in which the supply for a particular position is higher than the demand. As industries get settled, and business operations are set in their ways, the opportunity to start a career becomes virtually impossible, according to World.edu. The shipping industry has been one of these traditional industries. It has been established for so long that its operations and daily processes have become antiquated. However, with technological advancements, the shipping industry is on the cusp of a major overhaul. New ways of just about every sector of shipping processes are going to look considerably different, and with these new changes will come a whole new wave of career options. So, what skills do you need to be armed with to get into this industry that is on the brink of expansive growth? Read below to see how the future of the shipping industry will help students in their career choices.

Logistics and Supply Chain

The backbone of the shipping industry is the ordering and processing of goods. It is an enormous task to track and monitor this information even for a small company. Additionally, large corporations and importing/exporting operations rely on even more amounts of data daily.

Big Data

The future of the shipping industry predicts that these processes will be handled through big data technology: artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, blockchain technology, etc. While the convenience of big data involves a certain level of automation, someone will have to be well versed in these technologies to monitor them. Furthermore, forward-thinking employees will be needed to take on these new, technologically advanced transportation and logistical leadership roles to get the shipping industry out of its old-fashioned operations. Operations that need to catch up include supply chain organization, procurement, and the general improvements in logistics. Big data is playing a transformative role in just about any industry of today, and the shipping industry can benefit from it as well. Students who hold degrees of science in leadership and data science should be looking at the shipping industry for a career choice in progressive business administration and advanced logistical data management.

Automation

Logistical and supply chain processes, if done correctly, all assist with the actual shipping of products. These shipping processes are being reconstructed to provide innovative ways of getting products to customers and clients. Drones are already being tested as a delivery method, but drones show the promise of the automation of delivery on a much larger scale.

Drones

Amazon Prime is currently testing drone delivery and is honing the method with each test. FreightPros, who are experts in shipments themselves, analyze how drones will help the delivery process, saying that: “Shipping costs for that final few miles of shipping, which are often dictated by the number of delivery locations and volume of packages, could be dramatically reduced. Consumers could soon hear the buzzing of drones overhead on a regular basis, and think nothing more of it than they do seeing the ubiquitous delivery trucks of today.” Drones can handle personal deliveries, but what about the large shipments required on a global scale? While not quite as developed, the shipping industry will become much more innovative with larger autonomous vehicles as well.

Driverless Trucks and Ships

Freight trucks are relied on for large deliveries, and for even more significant shipments, shipping vessels are the go-to vehicle. The future of shipping industries, notes the World Economic Forum, will take the human out of the personal navigation processes — and right now you might be thinking that automation will take jobs away from people, and you would be right. But while these jobs are taken from humans and given to machines, the responsibilities for humans will be to monitor the computational data and computers of the vehicles. The automation of these vehicles will once again rely on data sciences. So the traditional delivery employee may be phased out, but it will bring tremendous opportunity for people in the science and engineering fields with the capabilities of managing big data and navigating truck and shipping vessels safely and automatically. *   *   * Big data, data sciences, and various other scientific and technological innovations will prove to be crucial to the revival of the shipping industry. With the above changes implemented into shipping operations, savings in time, cost, and manpower will occur in every step — from logistics to shipping and handling. As a student looking to make their start in a career field that is sure to explode, overlooking the shipping industry would be a missed opportunity.