Category Archives: Technology

Delhi International Airport (DIAL) in collaboration with Delhi Customs Brokers Association (DCBA) and operators of both the cargo terminals (Celebi and DCSC) has launched paperless e-Gate pass with QR coding at their cargo terminals. The e-Gate pass facility would be open to all stake holders effective July 1 as an optional service and it will be made compulsory from July 15. The e-Gate pass facility for import cargo delivery will not only help in ensuring social distancing by reducing human contact at the terminals, but will also expedite the process and save time. The airlines, consolidators or freight forwarders will now upload the scanned copy of Master Airway Bill/ House Airway Bill in the custodian system. The Bill of Entry (BoE) and Out of Charge (OoC) is being transmitted electronically by the Customs to the custodian system. With these details, the custom broker agent will submit the request for issuance of e-gate pass for the delivery of goods and will generate the QR code at his office itself after due verification by the cargo terminal operator, saving time and resources.

FarEye has announced partnership with Blue Yonder to drive seamless interoperability between legacy infrastructure and modern supply chain and logistics tools. The joint capabilities of both organisations will bring predictive and real-time visibility to supply chains across manufacturing, retail distribution, logistics, and ecommerce. The joint solution can be accessed through Blue Yonder’s LuminateTM Platform. The Luminate Platform combines rich internal and external data from across a customer’s digital supply chain assets to allow for smarter, more actionable Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) based business decisions. “Globally, approximately 30 per cent of spend on logistics to tackle inefficiencies is creating an opportunity to save US$ 1000 billion. Together, FarEye and Blue Yonder aim to capture this market with their joint offering, which will provide an exceptional customer experience in the last mile,” says Kushal Nahata, CEO, FarEye.

Holisol Logistics has launched PPC (production planning & control) and DAP (dispatch allocation planning) in order to extend its offering into the customers manufacturing supply chains. The company has been offering full-stack logistics systems like WMS, TMS, OCFS etc to digitalise customers’ supply chain. VERDIS, Holisol’s AI and ML system has added these two additional modules to assist the customer to optimise their production and dispatch planning by analysing demand, sales forecasts, production capacities, rules and planning constraints analysing up to 75m data points to give an output which has helped customers save several million and precious resources involved in the planning process. Rahul S Dogar, Co-Founder of Holisol Logistics, says, “With PPC and DAP modules, Holisol has ventured into the manufacturing segment of the supply chain and will continue to build an end-to-end value chain system to help customers digitalise and optimise their supply chains.”

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) has announced the first phase of ‘all-India roll out of faceless assessment’. With the objective of speedy clearance, transparency in decision making and ease of doing business, the board decided to implement the next generation reforms in the customs clearance process under ‘Turant’ customs. The Board has decided to begin faceless assessment in phases beginning with Customs stations which already have the experience of the pilot programs. Therefore, the first phase would begin from June 8, 2020 at Bengaluru and Chennai for items of imports primarily covered by Chapters 84 and 85 of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975. The phased rollout plan envisages that Faceless Assessment shall be the norm pan India by December 31, 2020.

DBS Bank India in partnership with TCIL has introduced the DBS RAPID (Real Time APIs by DBS) solution for truck drivers, thereby enabling them to receive payments instantly. Given the large volumes of transactions, and round-the-clock nature of the operations, the bank proposed setting up a UPI-based real-time payments solution which is available 24x7x365. With this solution, TCIL truck drivers receive an instant credit into their bank account, which they can then swipe at terminals or withdraw cash using ATMs. Through DBS Bank India’s custom API solution, TCIL will now be able to save 45 lakh hours annually. DBS RAPID (Real-time APIs by DBS) and UPI payments, provides a seamless integration with the company’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The solution has been set up under the aegis of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

In its pursuit for innovation and pioneering efforts in the technological application tools, Skyways Group launched a web-based business venture sKart. S.L Sharma, Chairman, Skyways Group stressed on the importance to move proactively on the digital journey which has changed the logistics landscape. Skart is 100 per cent cloud-based logistics industry software which will enable every small, SME and even big-ticket company to procure best in industry services for courier and express shipments to expand their businesses at a place of their convenience. The software has ERP which enables its customers to generate labels, provide real-time information, manages records etc. It manages all databank of KYC, labels, MIS etc online which allows its customers to access them at any time.

Aiming to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) for fleet owners, provide better control over operations and increased protection against fraud, Shell has launched Shell Fuels, Shell Fleet Prepaid program and Shell Telematics. Parminder Kohli, GM – Business Development, Marketing and Operations for Fleet Solutions, Shell, said, “Our mission is to be our customers’ first choice for sustainable mobility solutions. We would like to achieve this through understanding their fleet management problems and then providing customised solutions addressing their pain points.”

N Sivasailam, Special Secretary – Logistics, Department of Commerce, Government of India has kindly consented to grace the India Cargo Awards 2019. India Cargo Awards 2019 are scheduled to be held on January 27, 2020 from 7 pm to 10 pm at the Crowne Plaza Greater Noida. Sivasailam is an officer of the 1985 batch of the Indian Administrative Service allotted to Karnataka Cadre. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering, University of Delhi. He did his Master’s in Business Administration at the Faculty Management Studies, University of Delhi, and Master’s in Social Policy & Planning from the London School of Economics and Post Graduate Diploma in Intellectual Property Rights Law (IPRL) from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Prior to this assignment, he served as an Additional Chief Secretary in the Department of Public Enterprises, Government of Karnataka. He has served in the Departments of Health & Family Welfare and Medical Education, Forest, Ecology & Environment Departments of the Government of Karnataka as Principal Secretary.

The second LOGIX India 2019 – International Buyer Seller Meet was held on December 12, 2019 at New Delhi, launched by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) with the active support from Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. The three days mega event saw well over 3500 business to business meetings along with parallel sessions on different issues, challenges and above all opportunities about the logistics sector across India and the world. Inaugurating the event, Som Parkash, Minister of State for Commerce & Industry, Government of India, said, “Logistics is the backbone of any trade and industry. Currently the logistics cost in India is 30-40 per cent higher than the global benchmarked logistics cost. And therefore, it is a big challenge for the government. However, the government aims at reducing it to 10 per cent of the GDP. The government is also planning to invest around 100 lakhs crore in logistics infrastructure in the next five years. We are also in the process of coming out with a new National Logistics Policy and creating data bank by getting feedback from different stakeholders.

In its attempt to reduce logistics cost, the government has decided to allow introduction of ‘road trains’ on select routes and between identified points.The transport ministry’s draft rule for road trains comes at a time when the Centre is putting more focus on building 2,500 km of greenfield expressways like the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. The draft specifies the length, height and width of the roads. Even state governments are constructing more such roads. The NHAI has also been tasked to take up building economic corridors on priority, which would connect major manufacturing hubs. This move will encourage multi-container transport on the road, simultaneously reducing logistics cost. This mode of transporting freight is popular in countries including Australia, United States and in Europe to move huge quantity of cargo. Road trains consist of a conventional prime mover – truck – pulling two or more trailers. One road train in India can replace at least three trucks and is expected to prove beneficial for movement of freight.