Category Archives: Technology

Utilising its services to improve global logistics, NICDC Logistics Data Services-NLDS (formerly DMICDC Logistics Data Services, DLDS) has extended its services to Nepal and Bangladesh after the consent of Land Port Authority of India (LPAI) to install the RFID readers at Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) at India–Nepal and India–Bangladesh border. With this expansion, exporters and importers from Nepal and Bangladesh can track the movement of their containers through Logistics Databank Portal www.ldb.co.in and a mobile application named ‘NICDC-LDB’. The expansion includes ICPs, namely, Agartala-India-Bangladesh Border, Petrapole-India–Bangladesh border, Jogbani-India–Nepal border, Raxaul-India-Nepal Border With this coverage ICPs located at Agartala, Jogbani and Raxaul will help in road movement container tracking and Petrapole ICP will help in rail movement container tracking. Speaking on the development, K. Sanjay Murthy, IAS, CEO & MD, NICDC (National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation) and Chairman, NLDS says, “The new extension of services reiterates our vision and commitment of streamlining logistics across the country and the brand’s ambition to improve the EXIM trade, reduce the logistics cost and pave the way for India to become a logistics hub.” Ichiro Oshima, CEO, NLDS says, “Since its inception in Dec 2015, NLDS has played a vital role in enhancing the operations of Ports and Maritime Industry in India. While aiming at 100 per cent container volume tracking in India, this expansion will certainly mark a great milestone in bringing efficiency in logistics and supply chain industry.” Before NLDS came into existence, operators handled logistics independently through autonomous systems, which led to delays and inefficient tracking. Through its flagship product, LDB (Logistics Data Bank), NLDS streamlined container movement and today serves 25 port terminals while handling 96 per cent of the country’s …

The Ministry of Railways has approved Alstom-built 12000 HP electric locomotives and RDSO to run freight trains at a maximum speed of 120 kmph. Indian Railways had inducted the WAG 12B e-locos, which are the most powerful locomotives to run on Indian tracks, earlier in the year. These electric locos will allow faster and safer movement of heavier freight trains capable to haul ~6000 tonnes at a top speed of 120 kmph. Planned to be deployed for operations on major freight routes of Indian Railways including the Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs), they are expected to increase the average speed of freight trains in India by at least 20-25 kmph. Alain SPOHR, Managing Director, Alstom India & South Asia said, “The approval from RDSO is indeed a matter of pride for all of us at Alstom and a testimony of our technical expertise in partnership with the Indian Railways. In line with India’s push towards self-reliance, we have successfully leveraged our local engineering and manufacturing capabilities. Alstom is also committed to support IR in reducing its carbon footprint and adopt cleaner technologies in its quest to transform into the world’s largest Green Railway network. India is a priority for Alstom, and we are committed to work closely with the Indian Railways for all their future modernization endeavours.” “Equipped with Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT) based propulsion technology, it would lead to considerable savings in energy consumption due to use of regenerative braking. The technology is also helpful towards making the acceleration process more efficient by reducing the heat generation and traction noise. Additionally, this move will not only bring down operational costs, but also reduce the congestion faced by Indian Railways”, …

According to V Raju, Senior Vice President CL – Chemical, Pharma & Food Sector, Avvashya CCI Logistcs (All Cargo Group), “Introduction of technology means productivity and productivity coupled with efficiency is really going to pay back. Therefore, modern technology will definitely be endorsed and already 50 per cent of your customers are prepared to pay extra just to get technology in your system. However, it is only the Indian customer who is still going to bargain with you and opt for the cheaper method which is manual dependent rather than technology dependent. But over a period of time everyone will realise the kind of savings that technology gives, though the initial investments are going to high. It won’t happen in a day; it’s going to take time because the knowledge about the productivity and efficiency that will come by technology has to move into the minds of all customers.”

Commenting on should we be investing more on technology to sustain in business, Amit Malakar, Chief Customer Officer, Welspun One, says, “Technology is going to be a very important part of our lives. Everyone needs to be digitally savvy and make sure that their supply chain is resilient enough to reach the market through their warehouses. We have seen FMCG companies who were never on the e-commerce platform are now looking at digital distribution strategy in a big way.”

STARLUX Airlines has deployed IBS Software’s iCargo platform to manage business and operational functions for its entire cargo business. The iCargo management platform was implemented ahead of STARLUX Airlines’ launch in January 2020, which saw maiden flights to Macau, Penang and Da Nang with three A321neo aircraft. After a rigorous evaluation process, STARLUX Airlines chose IBS Software’s iCargo SaaS-based cargo platform to provide a single, unified platform for all critical functions. iCargo now manages all aspects of STARLUX’s cargo business, including sales, airline operations, US customs, mail, Unit Load Device, cashiering, claims, cargo and mail revenue accounting, portal services, data warehousing and business intelligence modules. “We chose the industry-leading iCargo management platform to achieve our goal of providing the best and seamless cargo service to our customers,” said Glenn Chai, CEO, STARLUX Airlines. “So far, iCargo has proved itself to be well worth the investment. It is an advanced digital solution featuring advanced and user-friendly functions. STARLUX is very glad to have made the right choice.” STARLUX plans to expand its network with additional A321neo aircraft scheduled for delivery, plus wide-body A350 XWB aircraft. iCargo is fully enabled to support this future growth and continue to empower STARLUX to deliver on its brand promise to customers.

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.”

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 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.”

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 …