Category Archives: Technology

According to Amar More, CEO, Kale Logistics Solutions, “If we leverage this opportunity, we will be at a different level of automation and this has happened in the past as well. After the 9/11 incident, most of the electronic communications got a major boost when US customs and border protections wanted information in advance. Our industry woke up and suddenly there was EDI flowing all around. Then the Yemen incident happened, and then there is big rush on providing a date before the aircraft is loaded. This kind of crisis has always created the pleading ground for higher technology adoption, and I am extremely confident it will take our industry, especially India to a new level,” he added

Calling pandemic an opportunity for us to look at digitisation seriously, Saurabh Kumar, CEO, Hyderabad Air Cargo, says, “We started challenging ourselves to process the same amount of cargo with minimal number of people. The pandemic has led us to challenge the existing way and leverage all the existing technologies. The busiest people in the industry are the people who are giving solutions to the emerging needs. The pandemic has set a clear roadmap in front of airports and air cargo complexes to become more sustainable and resilient in the future in case of any such pandemic.”

Portall announced that Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) has joined the maritime trade digitalisation platform, run by the government, Port Community System (PCS1x) to promote ease of doing business. The move comes as more ports, container freight stations (CFS) and inland container depots (ICD) move entirely to the application programming interface (API) on PCS1x that enables instant data exchange with zero loss, encompassing 17 messages which cover all the operational requirements of the port and its stakeholders. NMPT, New Mangalore Port Trust is also close to go live with API shortly. “The benefits of such real time connectivity are open to all custodians, all carriers and all ports and terminals. More and More stakeholders are approaching us for API and we have our technical partners Portall deployed on the job daily to assist and facilitate. The API Integrations have not only helped the Ports, CFS and ICDs to share and distribute data more efficiently, but also to customize data sets and enrich user experience via PCS1x.” said Dr. Janardana Rao, MD, IPA. Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) has also completed its API integration with Port Community System (PCS 1x) with 17 API messages which cover all the operational requirements of the port and its stakeholders. With this go-live, JNPT and PCS1x have ensured the future road map for API integration is set for other ports who are already testing with PCS 1x for API Integration. The Port handles about 200 vessels a month and has been at the forefront of tech adoption in the country. This enhancement will bring real time experience for data availability and acknowledgements in case of errors while message transmissions.

In a bid to revolutionise performance and operational excellence, Spoton Logistics has announced that the company is deploying AI-based video analytics solutions in one of its largest hubs. The AI-based system adds intelligence to the CCTV camera by analyzing video feed, identifying abnormal events, and sending automated alerts in real-time. “COVID-19 has had an indelible impact on businesses. It is, thus, of the highest priority for businesses to optimise their costs and increase efficiency. Almost two-thirds of the logistics costs are hidden, which is attributable to theft and pilferage of cargo, and holding of inventory. AI helps address this in an effective manner by automating processes and providing real-time visibility and alerts so that corrective measures can be taken. Being a technology and engineering driven company has always helped us stay ahead of the curve. Moving ahead with the same vigor, we will continue to invest in technology and automation such as Last-Mile Delivery Management, Interactive Chatbot, and IoT,” states Abhik Mitra, MD & CEO, Spoton Logistics.

Sharing the perils associated with paper, Amar More, CEO, Kale Logistics Solutions calls paper just not a piece, it means delays, environmental damage and in some places it means corruption. He continued, “India is a big success story, we have come to sixth rank globally from 116. Our country is the world’s IT backbone and we should not be following the world; however, we should be leading the world. In our industry, the time is now and we shouldn’t be wasting this opportunity considering paper not only delays and damages but with COVID-19 it is a death threat because the virus stays on paper for three to four days. So, if we are handling more paper, we are putting our own staff and industry at more risk. Hence, we should use technology not just for paperless operations but contactless.”

Amit Malakar, Chief Customer Officer, Welspun One talks about the lessons to be learnt from the pandemic at CargoTalk’s fourth digital conclave. He says, “COVID-19 has taught us few things, such as, how important it is to be digital in our business, consumer’s direct connection to brand and having multiple stock points rather than one to fulfil the demand quicker, to name a few. We have realised that industry players with robust supply chains and those who were well stocked and well replenished were the ones who survived. Calling logistics industry an important contributor to our economy, he continues, “There has been a lot of talk about warehouse consolidation over the last five years and now the government is also keen and trying to reduce some cost of supply chain. The warehousing industry has also got infrastructure status. Hence, things are moving in the positive direction in this industry.”

Sharing the challenging times given by COVID-19, Naveen Rawat, Director & Co-founder, Holisol Logistics, at CargoTalk’s fourth digital conclave says, “Things have started looking better especially on the e-commerce side. For many of our customers for whom e-commerce was just a secondary channel and their primary channel was selling from their stores have now realised that e-commerce is not a filler but a very important part of their business. In the last four to six weeks the business has gone up to 50 per cent from a single digit market share of e-commerce. Rawat is sure that this change is not only a temporary measure but even as and when things go back to normal, e-commerce would still be an important kind of channel for them. The growth percentage might not stay at 50 per cent but it will not go into single digit and will definitely not go back to pre-COVID level.

According to V Raju, Senior Vice President CL – Chemical, Pharma & Food Sector, Avvashya CCI Logistics (All Cargo Group), “COVID-19 has only created disruptions for us in the supply chain and logistics and we need to learn to live in an uncertain world. Today the warehousing and last-mile distribution occupies such an important part in the entire supply chain management. What is more important for all the stakeholders to think about it is how can they modernise and digitalise their existing systems such that the manual intervention becomes the least.” He expresses his views at CargoTalk’s fourth digital conclave. “Let us talk about the introduction of Warehouse Management System (WMS) in warehouses so that we can find out the exact location of cargo and also plan our receipts and delivery and inventory management in time with the help of these WMSs.”

Keeping it simple in terms of what COVID-19 has done and what contactless means, Satish Lakkaraju, Chief Commercial Officer, Agility Logistics at CargoTalk’s fourth digital conclave says, “It’s clearly visible from the way we have been doing meetings in the past and how are we interacting now. It’s only operations that have still been on ground but the rest of the things are now contactless.” He continues, “It is highly encouraging to see government initiatives on digitalisation and contactless movement. In the past, our fear used to be that government is slow to react but for the first time customs is the least painful department to deal with as far as logistics is concerned.”

In order to enable customers with supply chain solutions on Google Cloud, o9 Solutions has announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud. The new partnership extends the reach of o9 to companies looking to transform their capabilities around demand sensing and forecasting, supply chain planning, assortment planning, integrated business planning and more with the global infrastructure and deployment options that Google Cloud enables. The wide-ranging partnership will specifically target leading retail, consumer product manufacturer and telecom companies with unique capabilities to scale with o9 and Google Cloud. “The COVID-19 crisis has exposed significant weaknesses in how organisations run their value chains today,” said Igor Rikalo, President & COO, o9 Solutions. Data remains critical for effective planning, and Google Cloud’s data sources and scalability are key to deal with this new level of complexity. In addition, o9’s Enterprise Knowledge Graph (ie Digital Brain) is able to convert data (structured and unstructured, external and internal) to actionable insights to drive improved decision making.