AI and Business Reflection
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McMaster University *
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1Z03
Subject
Industrial Engineering
Date
Dec 6, 2023
Type
Pages
4
Uploaded by lemonm1
Reflection #5 – AI and Business
INNOVATE 1Z03
Professor Katie White
It can be frustrating for the customer when service disruptions occur, and for small
businesses, disruptions in supply chain or in the delivery of services can be detrimental to their
reputation.
With the presence of AI continuing to grow, I resonate and agree with Andrew Ng in
his claim that AI presents an exciting opportunity for businesses to maximize efficiency and
deliver excellent end to end customer service (Ng, 2022). To discuss more about why and how I
2
think AI can empower small businesses, I’m going to use a local appliance repair business, The
Appliance Doctor, as an example.
The Appliance Doctor is located in Hamilton and has been operating for over 15 years. In the
initial years, the business was relatively successful for its size and received local customer
service accolades (2023). However, since then the business has failed to expand their regional
scope and recently has received poor reviews as a result of significant delays in reaching
customers and inability to repair appliances in a timely manner (2023). The core areas where The
Appliance Doctor is struggling is in efficiency of delivering services and failing to meet or
manage customer expectation. AI has the potential to help The Appliance Doctor in many ways
to remedy the areas they are challenged in. Below are two suggestions for how they might be
able to do so:
1.
Addressing Efficiency
Perhaps one of the reasons The Appliance Doctor is lacking in efficiency of services is their
ability to optimize their service routes. Using a predictive AI program, when appointments or
requests are booked, the algorithm could design the most efficient route for technicians so they
can avoid potentially heavy traffic areas and assign cases to technicians who are within a certain
geographical range of each other (Nunez, 2023).
Additionally, if a repair is taking too long at
one location, the technician can report the delay and their upcoming service jobs would be
reassigned to the nearest tech on duty. This could help alleviate the lag time caused by
technicians having to drive back and forth across town to handle appointments, and ensure
labour is dispersed in a way that makes sense for the technician and the customer.
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