Category Archives: Supply Chain

APM Terminals Pipavav (Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd) announced the financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2021. The company reported a net profit of INR 453 million for Q2FY22 as against INR 520 million in Q2FY21. Revenue from operations for the quarter under consideration stood at INR 1,947 million as against INR 1,827 million in Q2FY21. EBIDTA for the quarter was at INR 1,090 million as against INR 1,029 million during the same quarter last year. EBIDTA margin stood at 56% in Q2FY22 as against 56% in Q2FY21. The container cargo business for the quarter stood at 157,048 TEUs, bulk business was at 1.39 MT and liquid business was 0.19 MT. 7,814 cars were handled under RoRo category for the quarter under review. During the quarter, APM Terminals Pipavav became the first Port to be connected to the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) with the completion of high-rise overhead electrification of the port rail yard. By switching to electrical loco, the Port will also be able to offer environment-friendly, long-haul, high-volume freight rail transport that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Port also loaded 100th LPG rake in less than a year of installation. The port is one of the few ports in India which can accommodate a full train.

Shiprocket, India’s leading tech-enabled logistics and fulfillment platform, was processing 40,000 units per day through its fulfillment services and has now scaled to a peak of 1.8 lakh during this festive season sale. Currently, fulfillment warehouses range from 3,000 to 80,000 square feet and receive orders from sellers across different categories, but personal care remains at the top, followed by health and beauty, apparel and fashion accessories, and electronic accessories. Shiprocket Fulfillment has observed a growth rate of over 90% month-over-month in the past 12 months, with 500+ clients onboard in less than eight months, of which 50-60% are D2C brands. Moving forward, Shiprocket plans to further bolster its fulfillment services by increasing its order processing capacity to 60,000 per day with 5 million inventory storage. Also, Shiprocket will expand its total warehousing area occupied to 4.5 lakh square feet to meet the required demand.

Evergreen is adding to its fleet and equipment capacity with an order for two 24,000 teu ships from China’s Jiangnan shipyard and 55,500 containers from three manufacturers. The new buildings will cost $140m-$160m each and delivery is expected 2024-2025. The new containers will cost Evergreen $338.5m – 27,500nfrom Dong Fang International Container (Hong Kong), 15,000 from Guangdong Fuwa Equipment and 13,000 from CXIC Group. They comprise 20ft and 40ft units and will be delivered in mid-2022. Among liner operators, Evergreen now has the most newbuilding orders, with 78 vessels under construction. Alphaliner estimates that Evergreen’s orderbook-to-fleet ratio is around 45%. In September, Evergreen ordered 24 ships from another Chinese shipyard, CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding, 20 15,000 teu ships from Samsung Heavy Industries in March and two 24,000 teu ships from Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding in June, as well as four 24,000 teu ships from Jiangnan Shipyard that are due for completion next year. Evergreen president Eric Hsieh said: “We never saw such high freight rates and the present situation is quite positive for liner operators’ future business prospects.”

Trademo, a global supply chain intelligence company has secured $12.5 million seed round funding. Trademo is building a global supply chain knowledge graph to help global-trade participants discover new opportunities, remain compliant with regulations, build operationally resilient supply chains, and grow commerce. Investors include marquee Silicon Valley venture capitalists Amit Singhal (former SVP Google), Saama Capital, Neeraj Arora (former Chief Business Officer of WhatsApp), Sridhar Ramaswamy (Founder/CEO Neeva and former SVP Google) and Shalabh Singhal (founder/CEO Trademo). “Global trade and supply chains have become increasingly complex over time. It’s very difficult for a large majority of businesses to manage this complexity and avoid disruptions without using external intelligence,” explained Ash Lilani, Managing Partner, Saama Capital. “When 70% of companies reporting issues monitoring supply chains last year, Trademo’s solution comes at the right time and is using the right technology and approach to crack one of the most important problems of our times.”

Gujarat retained the top slot, amongst 21 States, on the logistics index chart, an indicator of the efficiency of logistical services necessary for promoting exports and economic growth, the release pointed out. Gujarat has been the top performer since 2018. The LEADS, Logistics Ease Across Different States 2021, report has been prepared by a team of Transport & Logistics professionals at EY LLP with inputs from Department of Logistics, Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Among the northeastern States and Himalayan Union Territories, Jammu Kashmir topped the chart. Among Union Territories, Delhi got the top position. The inputs given by the LEADS Report 2021 can lead the way to bring down logistics cost by 5 per cent over the next 5 years, Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said releasing the report on Monday. “Some States have leapfrogged in their rankings. Uttar Pradesh has moved ahead seven places. That is reflective of the efforts that have been done in improving the quality of infrastructure there,” Goyal said.

To become carbon emission-free, Zypp Electric-an EV logistics tech delivery start-up claims to build India’s 1st EV D2C business. “We are extremely proud to be the first EV D2C Business in India. Our goal is to achieve 100% electrification in last-mile logistics and to assist businesses from many sectors in becoming emission-free,” said Akash Gupta, Co-Founder & CEO of Zypp Electric. Zypp electric caters to a wide range of enterprises, including e-commerce companies, e-grocery, Kirana stores, and restaurants, and handles end-to-end last-mile deliveries – from stores to customers’ homes – with various differentiated tech-enabled custom solutions, including the use of e-vehicles, service timing fixes, IoT-enabled battery swapping infrastructure, etc. The start-up at present has a fleet of 2000+ electric scooters and provides 500k deliveries each month. Zypp Electric made its debut in India with its first B2B heavy electric scooter, the ‘Zypp Cargo,’ in July 2021. This heavy-duty scooter, designed for last-mile logistics is capable of carrying up to 250 kg and has a 40 Ah battery and can go 120 kilometers in one charge. It can accommodate multiple battery systems and have swappable batteries.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal, while reviewing the functioning of the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), warned officials to watch out for business malpractices like ‘cartelisation and collusion’ and suggested the GeM team to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to avoid them. The Minister for Commerce & Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution said AI would further simplify the system and as the volume of operations grow, AI would be needed to bring the most appropriate buyers and sellers together for transactions, according to a government statement. Goyal asked for bringing more transparency to the system and added that operations should be audited regularly to ensure that all technical and financial aspects of GeM stay strong all the time. He also asked officials to make GeM more user and commerce friendly so that ease of doing business can be further promoted. Officials were also directed to significantly reduce and cap the transaction charges so that more traders are attracted to the GeM portal.

o9 Solutions, announced its collaboration with Vestas, a world leader in wind technology, to develop its global supply chain planning capabilities by leveraging the o9 Digital Brain platform. Vestas is the energy industry’s global partner on sustainable energy solutions and an innovator in wind energy design, manufacturing, and installation. The company services wind turbines in 83 countries across the globe. With the demand for renewable energy sources increasing worldwide, Vestas decided to digitally transform its supply chain with the aim of supporting its global growth and its ability to better navigate disruptions. Vestas selected o9 Solutions to meet these goals. With o9, Vestas will improve its demand planning and review, supply chain visibility, global and regional Sales & Operations Planning / Sales & Operations Execution. The o9 Digital Brain platform was selected by Vestas due to its ability to leverage modern technology – including the digital twin of the supply chain, big data, AI / ML algorithms, knowledge graphs and the like – to help companies achieve new levels of productivity, speed, and expertise in planning and decision-making. Additionally, o9’s experience in the wind turbine industry played a pivotal role in Vestas’ decision.

A UPS 747 flight is now connecting India directly to Europe and connecting UPS customers to North and Latin American markets five days per week. That doubles the company’s previous capacity to and from India for small and medium-sized business customers looking to grow their revenue base. UPS’s first direct flight from India will connect Delhi to its largest international hub at Cologne, Germany. Customers have been diversifying their supply chains as they respond to pandemic disruptions. And cargo space in the belly of passenger aircraft – normally reliable and cost-effective – has been significantly reduced. Now, buoyed by market demand and with an eye on business continuity, Indian entrepreneurs are looking for reliable alternatives to import and export products. “When business demand is increasing and volumes globally are being challenged, what you need is a smart logistics network that can respond to what customers are asking for, in an altered business environment. The agility to connect major economies to India via a direct flight for exports and imports is an example of UPS’s better not bigger strategy and will provide reliability and expanded capacity to UPS’s customers,” said Rachid Fergati, Managing Director Middle East, Central Asia, and Indian subcontinent for UPS.

GEODIS announced the deployment of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) from Geek+, a global technology company specialized in smart logistics through advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), at its Yuen Long Warehouse Distribution Centre (YLDC) in Hong Kong, SAR China. The YLDC will be provided with an exclusive AMR operating area with QR coding to guide automated operations. The smart facility underlines GEODIS’ digital-first outlook to future operations. Onno Boots, Regional President & CEO, Asia Pacific said: “Our investments in this AI-driven automation system brings substantial value to GEODIS’ eCommerce and retail customers by addressing some of the key challenges they face today. These solutions not only bring long-term cost-savings, operational efficiencies, and safety, but also enable us to maintain high-quality control standards while providing customers greater speed and flexibility of movement of goods.”