Category Archives: Warehousing

With a leasable area of 3.2 million sqft and an estimated investment of Rs 900 crore, Welspun One Logistics Parks (WOLP) has launched its maiden 110 acre Grade A warehousing park in Bhiwandi, Maharastra. The company has also entered into an MoU with the State Government of Maharashtra under the ‘Magnetic Maharashtra Initiative’ for this project, which is in advanced stages of receiving necessary approvals under the Integrated Logistics Parks (ILP) policy of the state of Maharashtra; making it one the first of its kind fully compliant projects in Bhiwandi. This development will create an upwards of 2700 multi-level job opportunities. Anshul Singhal, Managing Director, Welspun One says, “Our park in Bhiwandi is well suited to meet the requirements of a large number of end users including e-commerce, 3PL, FMCG/FMCD, modern retail, pharma and thus far has been very well received by large occupiers. We are also seeing significant interest from international and private equity investors, both at the project and overall platform level.”

Snowman Logistics has announced capacity expansion by adding to their pallet capacity across the country. The company has commenced construction at the Siliguri facility and is further adding pallet capacity to Taloja and Krishnapattanam facilities taking the total pallet capacity to 1,13,208 with a presence in 16 cities catering to the key markets of Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata. Snowman will add 4200 pallets at Siliguri and will expand Taloja (Mumbai) and Krishnapattanam facilities by a total of 3000 pallets. All these facilities are scheduled to be up and running before this financial year-end. The company caters to its comprehensive network of reputed clients, which source and consume temperature-sensitive products in bulk amounts.

With people and transportation constantly flowing in and out of the warehouse property, it’s a constant hub of activity. It puts them at risk for many things, like a fire, or a flood, product damage, or employee safety. Among them, theft is a critical problem. Warehouses have commonly incorporated video cameras to help catch activity going on in and around the property. But in most cases, when loss is identified, the warehouse manager or security staff turn to the video security system to search for the right footage. The challenge is that there is an ocean of video footage, and sometimes none of it clearly tells what happened. This makes forensic search difficult and time-consuming. In short, conventional video monitoring systems cannot effectively help identify an intrusion event at the time it is happening and thus prevent at the very beginning. Accurate trespassing alarm Video monitoring with accurate trespassing alerts on the detection of a human intrusion event will be a great improvement. Today’s security products equipped with Prama Hikvision’s AcuSense technology automatically send out alerts when a human or a vehicle is detected. With an advanced deep learning algorithm, technology precisely distinguishes and categorizes objects into human, vehicle and other. Alarms triggered by the ‘other’ objects such as a beam of light, an animal, the movement of foliage, etc., are disregarded, leaving the true events which are associated with humans and vehicles for users and security personnel to focus and act. Additionally, related videos are automatically sorted by categories for easier search. Focused technology in action So in the warehouse setup, AcuSense cameras are installed to stay alert day and night. If an intruder enters an area of attention, …

“In order to streamline the logistics eco-system in the country, a National Logistics Efficiency and Advancement Predictability & Safety Act (NLEAPS) is under consideration,” informs, Pawan Agarwal, Special Secretary (Logistics), Ministry of Commerce & Industry at a webinar organized by the PHD Chambers of Commerce. Stressing on defining the various elements in the logistics sector, he says, “What the logistics sector is all about is not very clear to us as of now. The government is considering replacing the multimodal transportation of goods law with national logistics law to promote growth of the sector.” “The high logistics cost of country is impacting the competitiveness of domestic goods in the international market. India’s logistics sector is highly fragmented and the government aims to reduce the logistics cost from the present 14 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product to less than 10 per cent,” tells Agarwal. He continues, “During the times of COVID-19, there has been a disruption in the supply chain and movement of truck with many of the supplies diverting to the rail; making it a reliable and cost effective mode of transportation. In these indispensable times, we have realised the importance of essential services with their regular supply chains,” he adds. According to Agarwal, digitisation of logistics is the need of the hour which will increase the efficiency in movement of goods. He also informs that the government is working on creating digital platforms and mobiles apps for logistics such as warehouse information tracking and trading yard (WITTY), among others to mapping of warehouses. Agarwal believes that logistics is a sector that needs to realise the vision of ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’.

In India 60 per cent transportation was by road where as it is much more by waterways in other countries. At the webinar held by Domestic Air Cargo Agents Association of India (DACAAI), Suman P Singh, Joint Secretary – Logistics, MoRTH informs, “We are working on 35 Multimodal Logistic Parks with connectivity of rail, road, air and sea to reduce freight charges and handling charges.” He continues, “Our warehouses have to be bigger and mechanised in order to attain economies of scale. On procedural part, ministry is working on fully automated multimodal logistic parks in paperless mode.” “The multimodal parks at Chennai, Nagpur & Aizwal are getting operational,” Singh informs.

According to India Warehousing Market Report 2020 by Knight Frank, “National Capital Region (NCR) emerges as the foremost market recording the highest volume of leasing at 8.6 million square feet (mn sq ft). It also recorded a 45 per cent CAGR growth in demand over a three year period. The report also notes that an additional 193 mn sq ft of warehousing space can be built on the existing land committed to warehousing across the top 8 cities of India. This works out to a 63 per cent addition to the existing 307 mn sq ft of warehousing stock in these markets NCR has a development potential multiple of 1.75, which implies that 75 per cent more warehousing space, can be added to the region. The current stock is reported to be 57mn sq ft with a potential of expansion to 100mn sq ft on warehousing land of 4,178 acres in NCR. In FY2020, 28 per cent of the warehousing space was leased by e-commerce followed by the manufacturing sector (24 per cent). Major occupiers such as Flipkart and Amazon took up warehouses at the exit points of the Kundli Manesar Palwal Expressway (KMP). The compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for warehousing transactions for the period FY2017-20 in NCR remained positive with 45 per cent. The warehousing demand in the NCR market has kept vacancy levels low at 13.9 per cent compared to other markets such as Bengaluru and Pune which have vacancy levels of 29.7 per cent and 21.8 per cent respectively.

Facilitating omnichannel e-commerce, Holisol has scaled up the fulfillment capabilities by adding self-serving ‘Automated Sales Centre (ASC)’, a tech-based solution that enables 24×7 touch-less buying of product. Along with this, the company has created a strong and tech-enabled network of pick-up centres, customer experience centres, rapid fulfilment centres, return/refurbishment centres, dark Stores, exchange stores, omni-channel fulfilment centres and collection centres enabling seamless omnichannel shopping experience for the end customer. “Our focus is, how to increase the accessibility of the consumption market for the customers, especially during the crisis. By enabling distributed inventory model and placing them closer to the consumption market, we aim to make our customers’ supply chain responsive and enable faster fulfilment”, states Rahul S Dogar, Managing Director, Holisol. “The biggest value addition has been to let our customer focus on sourcing and selling, leaving all else in between to us. With our tech-enabled omnichannel network we will speed up the fulfilment including instant, same day or next day fulfilment to increase the sales throughput of our customers,” he adds.

cargo-partner has added over 3,600 pallet slots to its warehouse in Dunajska Streda, Slovakia, bringing the total up to 26,700 pallet slots on an area of 18,300 square meters. The investment consists of 2,727 slots for euro pallets (120×80 cm) as well as 900 slots for 160×80 cm pallets on an area of 1,000 m². Two new very narrow aisle (VNA) forklifts with floor induction ensure highly efficient warehouse operations. The forklifts are used in the storage zone and service area for fine picking, kitting and packing of over one million parts per year for two main clients of the very service-sensitive automotive sector.

The period of successive lockdowns has been tough for the families whose incomes have been reduced substantially or become zero. To lend a helping hand such families, IndoSpace has taken an initiative to provide food rations to households living in the communities around IndoSpace’s warehousing and logistics parks in Maharashtra (Chakan, Khopoli), Karnataka (Bommasandra, Nelamangala) and Tamil Nadu (Chennai). Under this initiative, IndoSpace has distributed close to 7000 ration kits with the objective of supporting these families with their daily staple food requirements till the time the earning members of these families are able to return to employment. The ration kits have been customised as per the regional food habits. The company has set up distribution kiosks in the common areas of the village, and beneficiaries were able to collect their kits while following safety precautions and social distancing. The process is administered in the presence of an IndoSpace representative, a village administration official and the local NGO, to ensure that the distribution is as per the official government list only. IndoSpace is constantly evaluating the situation in the villages to understand how the livelihood is progressing as lockdown restrictions are beginning to ease and will take a call on continuing the support basis the situation on the ground.

Industrial Parks have announced its entry to South India with Hosur where it has acquired 60 acres of real estate in Hosur and is planning to build a warehousing facility spread across 1.3 million square feet. The park’s strategic location offers a great opportunity to Embassy Industrial Park’s clients to meet the needs of the consumers thus offering them a great spot for fruitful business execution. Aditya Virwani, COO, Embassy Group, & Spokesperson, Embassy Industrial Parks says, “Bengaluru is the hub of various industries including auto, auto ancillary, and other manufacturing units, and is also an IT hub and head office to numerous leading e-commerce brands. We are happy to share the construction of our industrial park is progressing and we already have interest from our existing clients in the Hosur under construction project. The pandemic has slowed the process but as soon as we come out of this, things will surely speed up. Hosur with its close proximity to Bengaluru city is a promising location and the positioning of our industrial park will surely pay off clients who lease in this facility.”