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Eliminating errors with AI helps enable flawless logistics
SiB Solutions + IBM
SiB Solutions is a Swedish logistics technology company offering intelligent video and AI services helping logistics-intensive businesses achieve zero error rates. Using advanced technologies such as computer vision, AI, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and edge computing, SiB Solutions' services can eliminate errors throughout their supply chain.
SiB Solutions has developed and improved its solutions since starting on IBM Cloud® in 2020, using IBM® Code Engine and IBM Event Streams, a fully managed service based on open-source Apache Kafka. “Event Streams on IBM Cloud is core in everything we develop,” says Viktor Nilsson, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at SiB Solutions.
A variety of processes are executed in a typical warehouse, including receipt of goods, picking, packing, loading and transport. SiB Solutions wanted to develop with open-source technologies to avoid vendor lock-in. The company chose Apache Kafka, which is ideal for communication in the logistics environment, because it solves many issues inherent with large monolithic architectures, including a lack of reliability and flexibility. “[We] needed to have high volume streaming of data and Kafka is the best solution we could find for that,” Nilsson continues.
Event Streams is also integral to SiB Solutions’ Intelligent Video and AI Services, where Kafka is used to drive machine learning through analytics machines running neural networks. For SiB Solutions’ customers, video analytics are run onsite to comply with data residency regulations. Then edge computers process the videos onsite following a variety of deep learning models. The output of this process is sent from Kafka producers over Kafka topics to cloud servers, where application logic takes place. “[Kafka] allows us to build everything as microservices,” Nilsson adds.
SiB Solutions uses Event Streams for IBM Cloud for communicating between the microservices that sit on virtual machines and connect from customers’ warehouses to the cloud. For example, SiB Solutions services use intelligent video cameras to monitor selected warehousing processes. Using AI, a forklift driver might receive an audible alert. The driver would then see an augmented reality (AR) overlay of the current load with a red rectangle around a misplaced box and directions specifying where it should be put.
Companies that handle valuable goods choose SiB Solutions for superior visibility and insight into their local and international logistics operations. In fact, the company now services over 30 sites across Europe and North America. Choosing the managed Event Streams on IBM Cloud service allowed SiB Solutions to save on infrastructure costs and operational expenses. In the words of CTO Nilsson, “It just works.”
SiB Solutions (link resides outside of ibm.com) is a logistics technology (logtech) company enabling flawless logistics. For logistics-intensive companies transacting valuable goods, SiB Solutions’ intelligent video and AI services provide superior visibility and insights. The unique combination of native logistics, know-how and advanced technology, bundled into straightforward subscription services, provides an immediate ROI.
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Produced in the United States of America. November 2023.
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