In order to deliver an integrated solution to eliminate friction in complex global supply chains, FourKites have partnered with o9 Solutions. The idea is to augment o9’s Control Tower solution with FourKites’ real-time in-transit freight tracking. The partnership enables customers to receive, in o9, proactive notifications of freight disruptions coming from FourKites, so that they can implement agile planning and scenario management to mitigate any impact of those disruptions on their end-to-end supply chain. “o9 Solutions and FourKites are two best-of-breed solutions that are bringing a completely new value proposition to our joint customers. By bringing real-time freight tracking right into our Control Tower, our users will have access to maximum visibility, predictability and reactivity to any freight disruptions,” said Chakri Gottemukkala, CEO, o9 Solutions. “Real-time visibility and predictive ETAs are critical to end-to-end supply chain planning and orchestration,” said Mathew Elenjickal, founder and CEO, FourKites, in adding, “Our customers are seeing 10-15 per cent savings within their transportation, warehouse and customer service operations by leveraging the prescriptive recommendations from our platform. Our shipper network and data set, combined with o9’s end-to-end integrated planning capabilities, will enable our mutual customers to create exponential savings across their supply chains.”

In response to increased demand for pharma and technology goods, DHL Global Forwarding (GF) has announced an airfreight charter service connecting Asia Pacific to Europe and the US. DHL GF’s in-house charter team, the twice-weekly charter originates from Chongqing and flies to Amsterdam, Chicago and Incheon before returning to China. According to DHL GF, South Korea has seen its export of healthcare products rise year-on-year by 26.7 per cent in the first half of 2020; pharma goods meanwhile increased by 52.5 per cent. DHL GF added that China has exported 28.5% more medical devices in the first five months of the year, compared with a year ago. Thomas Mack, Global Head – Airfreight, DHL GF, says, “While some passenger airlines have resumed operations, the situation in the airfreight market remains volatile – especially as belly capacity is still tight. Our top priority is to provide our customers with sufficient and reliable airfreight capacity. Not only are the resilient, agile and reliable supply chains of highest importance for an economic recovery, but also in preparation for the availability of vaccines and other essential medical supplies during the pandemic.”

COVID-19 has changed e-commerce for the better and warehousing plays a very important role. Sharing his expectations from warehouse developers, Naveen Rawat, Director & Co-founder, Holisol Logistics, says, “On the e-commerce side, we are getting the requirement of being able to be as close to the customer as possible. Land cost is important, therefore, these large hubs have to be located on the outskirts of the city because firstly land would not be available in the city and secondly it would be costly to do that. While the e-commerce company wants to do a 90-minutes delivery promise to the customer, location has to be taken care of with small space within the city that has to be optimally managed. There is going to be a lot of demand of smaller fulfilment centres with some sort of automation to still be productive and efficient and being closer to the city. This is one area where we feel a lot of warehousing space is going to be required from within the city in addition to large big boxes Grade-A quality spaces which would be required on the outskirts of the city.”

With a plan to strengthen its local footprint in India over the next few years, Schenker India opened its largest warehousing hub in the country. The first phase of the warehouse spans over a space of 25,000 sq mts located in Badli, Gurgaon which is close to the KMP (Kundli Manesar Palwal) expressway and strategically located for effective and efficient supply chain management within NCR and North India. Vishal Sharma, CEO of Cluster India & Indian Sub-Continent, DB Schenker said, “It is a milestone development in the overall Contract Logistics strategy for the organisation after years of careful planning and preparation. It is also a strong testament to DB Schenker’s long term commitment to India as it is one of its most strategically important market in the global network and is projected to grow over 100% by 2025.” Equipped with digital technologies, this state-of-the-art warehouse is fully radio frequency-enabled, equipped with 100% consignment scanning feature, conveyor for operation movement, automated shutters, TAPA compliant & FM Global compliant fire prevention & suppression system, Green Building certified by GBCI under EDGE platform, and access control enabled doors among a slew of many other features

Elaborating the liquidity crunch being faced by exporters, S K Saraf, President, FIEO, says, “Despite the pandemic, Indian exporters have started receiving a lot of enquiries and orders from across the globe helping many sectors to show improved export performance, which is likely to get better in next few months. However, exporters, particularly from MSME sector, are facing huge liquidity challenges due to the stoppage of MEIS benefits of over Rs 10,000 crore from April 1, 2020 and IGST refund now. At this point of time when exporters are receiving new orders from new buyers and destinations, support needs to be given to help them to execute such orders.” Unfortunately, many of the exporters have expressed their inability to honour such orders, in view of liquidity challenges, due to stoppage of exports benefits and refund of GST. President, FIEO urged the Government to look into the issue as any letup in our export efforts, at this juncture, will cost us dearly while successful execution of these orders will bring additional export business from new and unexplored territories. All wings of the government should sit together, opined Mr Saraf, to resolve the technical and financial issues, helping the seamless flow of liquidity to exports sector. President, FIEO also said that banks are helping eligible exporters with the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme but due to hold up of GST refund and MEIS, the exporters are forced to seek additional loans from banks and such additional requirement is now subject to very high interest rates. Banks need to consider this pragmatically and provide a competitive interest rate to the exports sector particularly as the deposit rates have come down substantially with the …

Bolloré Logistics partnered with Antonov Airlines to deliver Airbus Defence and Space’s newest satellite, ANASIS-II to the USA. It was carried from Airbus Defence and Space’s facility in Toulouse (France) by one of the airline’s seven Antonov-124-100. The aircraft landed at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Kennedy Space center from where the SpaceX teams took the lead for the next stage. The satellite container used to deliver ANASIS-II measured 11 meters in length and weighed 18 tonnes. The operation gave Bolloré Logistics and Antonov Airlines the opportunity to trial a new lightweight, low profile loading equipment specially designed and manufactured by Antonov Airlines to transport largest satellite container in near future.

With going contactless, a lot of movement will get done on trust or faith. Expressing his views on the same, Satish Lakkaraju, Chief Commercial Officer, Agility Global Integrated Logistics, says, “The logistics industry has been running dominantly for ages on the trust factor itself. A freight forwarder today is working with one laptop and internet connectivity; it is only trust with his customers that at the end of the day the cargo will move from point A to point B. There are hardly any contracts. If any customer walks to any freight forwarder, he would follow the process and the documentation but it is more of a trust than processes. It’s up to the associations, freight forwarders and rest of the industry that integrity should be built in the organisation drastically and if we all work as a team and enhance integrity to the greatest extent then trust will further enhance and we can work jointly to make India a market in future for everyone to come. Globally, there is a conception or fear that India is quite painful in ease of doing business but I would surely say that working in India has become much better.”

To meet demands of customers for re-export & long-term storage of bonded cargo at minimal logistics cost, Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) has opened India’s first on-Airport Public Bonded Warehouse. Operated by Cargo Service Center (CSC), the 10,000 sq ft warehouse facility will be under the jurisdiction of the City Commissionerate, Bengaluru Customs. This facility will reduce supply chain costs and facilitate trade at India’s IT hub and surrounding regions. The Public Bonded Warehouse will help re-export of goods, long-term storage of bonded cargo, assist in partial clearances and allow value-added services such as labeling, packing and repacking services. “At BIAL, our vision is to make BLR Airport a cargo hub, equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure and cutting-edge technology to deliver efficient operations. In order to simplify processes and meet customer demands with the help of key stakeholders, including the Bengaluru Customs, BIAL has taken this step to set up India’s first on-campus Public Bonded Warehouse. This demonstrates BIAL’s commitment to support the Airport cargo community, as well as bolster the growth of BLR Airport as a cargo hub,” said Satyaki Raghunath, Chief Strategy & Development Officer, BIAL.

In order to create a single digital access point for all stakeholders for information and seamless communications, Siemens India has integrated its systems with the Air Cargo Community System (ACS) framework at Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) called as GMAX. ACS is developed by Kale Logistics Solutions (Kale). It enables the agency to enter and view the data directly, thereby avoiding duplicate data entries and to receive updates on real-time cargo status. Manoj Singh, Sr. VP – Head of Cargo, MIAL said, “Technology plays a very crucial role in ensuring seamless processes at MIAL Air Cargo, and was the primary motivation behind the launch of GMAX in 2013. The ease of integration of the portal with Siemens speaks volumes about the relevance and future scope of GMAX towards air cargo operations. It also enables us to further extend this service to import consignees, regulators and global airports initially to start with CEIV certified partner airports in a phased manner.” Dr. Pramod Sant, VP- Head of Import, Export and Customs of Siemens India said, “Time criticality is an essential factor for Siemens. With ACS integration we made the right move to give our organization and stakeholders the immediate value needed during these uncertain times. We strongly believe Kale’s ACS will help us meet our long-term strategic business initiatives.” Amar More, CEO, Kale Logistics Solutions, said, “Logistics is all about speed, visibility and connecting different stakeholders for efficiency. This is probably another global first for the Mumbai air cargo community wherein the exporter/importer has connected directly with the ACS. We are proud to be part of this initiative and are committed to digitally transform the airport cargo community globally.”

London Heathrow Airport’s air cargo community has successfully completed its first trial of IATA’s ONE Record technologies, which aim to replace the legacy Cargo-Imp and XML standards. The vision for ONE Record is an end-to-end digital logistics and transport supply chain where data is easily and transparently exchanged in a digital ecosystem of air cargo stakeholders, communities and data platforms. Its objective is to address the main challenges of e-freight and unlock the possibilities of a full digital air cargo industry, creating opportunities for new value-added services and business models. Working on behalf of CCS-UK, the operator of the UK’s air cargo community system, US application development and data management specialist Nexshore built a ONE Record server based in the UK, to control the storage and transmission of the ONE Record data objects which form the core of the new concept. The server was built to the latest ONE Record standards, but was also designed to support earlier versions. In addition, security to the latest IATA specifications was built into the CCS-UK platform. “We are delighted at how well this initial pilot has gone, but we need additional participants in order to test the system on a larger scale, under everyday working conditions and with higher traffic levels,” says Malcolm Fowler, CCS-UK User Group. “ONE Record may not seem like the most important priority for the industry right now, but in fact there has never been a better time to adopt it. It delivers greater efficiency and potential cost savings, and low implementation costs. In addition, through the total transparency and uniformity it brings to the supply chain, it provides the kind of seamless data flows and visibility which shippers …