Category Archives: Supply Chain

Movin Express, a joint venture between UPS and InterGlobe Enterprises, has announced the expansion of its Express end-of-day service to 19 new cities and towns, providing faster time in transit in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. This expansion takes the network of Movin’s Express end-of-day services to 47 cities, covering ~3000 pin codes, which caters to major commercial production and consumption hubs of India. This latest phase of expansion of operations, supported by tech-driven innovations, has spread MOVIN’s services in Metros as well as Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities to cater to customers’ demands in the ever-expanding B2B logistics space. The 19 new cities are Allahabad, Aurangabad, Bagdogra, Belgaum, Dehradun, Guwahati, Hubli, Jodhpur, Kolhapur, Madurai, Mysore, Nagpur, Rajahmundry, Rajkot, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirappalli, Tirupati, Udaipur and Varanasi. The already existing 28 cities include Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Baroda, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Coimbatore, Delhi-NCR, Goa, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mangalore, Mumbai, Patna, Pune, Raipur, Ranchi, Surat, Vijayawada, and Visakhapatnam. JB Singh, Director InterGlobe Enterprises and Board Member of Movin, said, “The decision to expand our presence into these cities was a logical step in our business growth strategy. It has been in line with our plan to tap into key locations that generate most of India’s B2B commerce volume. Our network in this phase of the expansion has added some of the most strategic markets in the country that will allow us to unlock businesses from sectors such as textiles, electronics, IT peripherals, automotive components, healthcare, and e-commerce. Our customers are gaining business value from our class-leading, competitive, and technology-driven express and standard premium services.”

The 4th Edition of SCM Logistics World summit with an apt theme ‘Reinventing Supply Chains through Agility & Resilience in a New World Order’ is all set to kickstart on November 4, 2022 at the Holiday Inn in New Delhi. Organised by the Programic Asia, the summit will have the supply chain experts discussing on various important subjects such as Net Zero Supply Chain & Impact on Business, Hiring & Culture – The Key role of Talent in the Future Supply Chain, India’s Response to Port Girdlocks and Fostering Supplier Enabled Innovation in Supply Chains. The event will prove to be a great platform to deliver the must-have insights, strategies and frameworks for chief supply chain officers and their leadership to bring continued agility, resilience and adaptability to their organizations.

India’s first D2C brand in the seafood and meat category, Pescafresh, has launched a new processing facility and distribution hub in Mumbai for its seafood, meats, eggs, Ready to Cook (RTC) and Ready to Eat (RTE) processing operations. This Central Areal Processing and Distribution centre (CAD) in Lower Parel includes separate processing areas for seafood, poultry, mutton and RTC and RTE with industry-leading temperature and humidity controls. It also has a culinary centre, dry storage, an office mezzanine, freezers, coolers, and loading docks. The unit includes an R&D centre to develop exemplary fresh products across the seafood and meats range. Equipped with industry-referenced processing, analytical capabilities and based on European standards, the new facility will serve customers hygienic and 100% fresh Pescafresh products. This facility reinforces the company’s strategy of investing in infrastructure that enables the brand to create formulations that meet the needs of customers and market trends. It has been constructed to enable the highest standards in hygiene and cleanliness and various industry-standard Sanitary Standards Operating Procedures (SSOPs) have been put in place.

India has grown tremendously and realised the importance of supply chains. Last two years have witnessed tremendous technological shifts taking take place across the world and one of the areas where these technological shifts have their profound impact has been supply chain, said Jyotiraditya Scindia, Minister of Civil Aviation and Steel, Govt of India at the ongoing event, Leads 2022 organised by FICCI in the capital. The minister said, there are three key words connected with supply chain – robustness, resilience, and reliability. This three ‘R’ approach signifies the context of a successful supply chain and India today is creating that ecosystem for supply chains. To achieve this, minister added that there have been landmark developments going on on the policy front. “With PM’s Gati Shakti initiative, which aims to enhance infrastructure and connectivity for seamless movement of cargo, multimodal projects to enhance transportation via air road sea and rail, enabling customers to track and trace their products and the latest National Logistics policy, the country is moving in the right direction. Logistics industry is set for a rapid growth,” said the minister.

WIZ Tracks flagged off its fleet of trucks for temperature-controlled shipments at the recently concluded Cold Chain Unbroken 2022 event in Hyderabad. Guhan murty, Director, Land transportation Solution Wiz Truck said, “We operate a fleet of over 1600 trucks. We currently operate around 25 reefer trucks and we have plans to scale it up to 50 trucks by December. We see a lot of growth opportunities in this segment because it’s highly fragmented and there are very few big players who are supplying cold chain products pan-India. We have plans to cover all the pin coded in India.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the much-awaited National Logistics Policy (NLP) in the national capital on September 17 which, he said, was an important step towards the ‘making of a developed India,’ while adding that the policy has come with a ‘new energy for every sector.’ In his address, PM Modi said, “In the Amrit Kaal, the country has taken an important step towards the making of a developed India. The echo of ‘Make in India’ and ‘India becoming self-reliant’ is everywhere. India is setting big export targets and is also fulfilling them. India is emerging as a manufacturing hub. In such a situation, the National Logistics Policy has brought new energy for all sectors.” The NLP also aims at enhancing competitiveness and seamless movement of goods. At the grand event, Modi also focused on setting up Multimodal Logistics Parks (MMLPs), developing infrastructure and enhancing multimodal connectivity. “The government, both at centre and state, would prepare a master plan for logistics that will cover projects planned by different ministries to ensure multi-modality, optimal modal mix and addressing first and last mile connectivity. The policy also makes way for a framework to set up Multi-modal Logistics Parks (MMLPs), which will be adopted by states and central ministries. This aims at seamless integration of various modes of transport. A framework will also be put in place for accelerated development of warehousing, which will address key aspects, such as standards, benchmarking and rating, and adoption of technology enabled solutions.”

DHL Supply Chain (DHL) announced a EUR 500 million investment in India over the next five years. DHL will own and operate wholly owned large multi-client sites in India because of this transaction, adding twelve million square feet of warehouse space to the Group’s existing portfolio, says official press release. The expanded warehouse capacity is intended to better serve rising industries such as e-commerce, retail, consumer, life sciences, technology, engineering, and manufacturing, and automotive. “Majority of investment will go towards construction of large warehouses and logistics centers. In India, we will have a multiple customers facility, which means we can deploy people across multiple customers or bring in economies of scale,” said Vikas Anand, MD, DHL Supply Chain India.

Bengaluru-based Vahak, a transport platform enabled by AI, has expanded its operations and user base in Punjab. This digital community enables direct connections between all logistics players, fostering India’s largest ecosystem of transport SMEs and lorry owners. Speaking about this growth since the pandemic, Karan Shaha, CEO, and Co-founder at Vahak said, “Using the Vahak app, Punjab truckers were able to function even during the pandemic, making critical supplies available. Now, they are witnessing up to 25-26 days of inter and intrastate runs as compared to 15-17 days earlier. This has resulted in consistent growth in our user base over the last year with load postings showing a 100 percent increase and lorry posting going up by over 40 percent. We are seeing the highest demand coming in for containers, trucks, and LCVs.”

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has invested Rs 30,000 crore (around USD 3.76 billion) in its retail business and added 2,500 stores, taking the total store count to 15,196 in FY22. Besides, Reliance Retail added 11.1 million square feet of warehousing space during the year, nearly doubling the warehousing space to 22.7 million square feet, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said in the annual report for FY22. “Reliance Retail has built capabilities through organic growth, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships with investments near Rs 30,000 crore in FY 2021-22. Reliance Retail added over 2,500 new stores and 11.1 million sq ft of warehousing space during the year,” said official statement from RIL. In FY22, on an average, Reliance Retail added seven stores per day.

The Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC) and NEC have collaborated to provide logistics visualization services that would help to streamline India’s complex logistics supply chains and reduce logistics costs. An official statement said, “India’s rapid economic growth has been causing trouble for the country’s aging logistics infrastructure. Transporting goods around the country takes a long time and there are frequent delays. It is difficult to know exactly where shipments are at any given moment. Wishing to avoid the risk of running out of stock, consignors in the manufacturing industry have tended to overstock their inventories. The added costs of navigating complex logistics supply routes and overstocking have created barriers to attracting foreign investment and enhancing international competitiveness.” Piyush Sinha, CEO of DMICDC Logistics Data Services (DLDS), a joint venture company between DMICDC and NEC also stated, “The logistics cost is probably 13 to 14 per cent of total GDP. This must reduce to 7 to 8 per cent to make our exports more competitive.”