Category Archives: Warehousing

FM Logistic to double warehousing capacity to 1.2 crore sqft in 3-4 years

FM Logistic has announced its plans to double its warehousing space to 1.2 crore sq ft in three to four years from 60 lakh sq ft at present. According to Alexandre Amine Soufiani, MD and CEO, FM Logistic, “The demand for such facilities will increase in the aftermath of the pandemic. We expect sales to return to pre-COVID levels by March 2021 as 90 per cent of the business has already recovered by December.” With its plans to set up Grade-A facilities in all metro cities and dynamic economic areas, especially multi-customer units, and focus on urban logistics, FM Logistic looks to attain leadership position in the sector. Grade-A warehouses are categorised on the basis of construction quality, available space, location, amenities and clients, among others. In March 2019, FM Logistic had outlined its plans to invest US$ 150 million over the next five years to set up new warehouses in India, with focus on multi-client warehouses. “When we acquired Spear Logistics in 2016, there was only 20 lakh sq ft space and four warehousing units. Today we have 60 lakh sq ft in four years and we want to double this to take it to 1.20 crore sq ft under our operations in the next 3-4 years,” Soufiani said. The company has already announced its plans to add 40 lakh sq ft warehousing space in the next three years that will take its total space to 1 crore sq ft, he said, adding that it could add another 20 lakh sq ft. He said the company has added a total of 10 lakh sq ft space in the last six months, all for multi-customers facilities, including omni channel, pharma, …

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GIZ join hands with ESR to develop industrial & logistics assets in India

Singapore based GIC and ESR Cayman have entered into an 80:20 strategic partnership to establish a US$750 million joint venture to develop and acquire industrial and logistics assets in India. The JV will develop and own institutional-grade, state-of-the-art industrial and logistics facilities as well as acquire core assets, focusing on Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities across India and will be seeded with a ~2.2 million sq. ft build-to-core asset, located in close proximity to the large consumption hubs of Mumbai and Thane. Lee Kok Sun, Chief Investment Officer of Real Estate, GIC, says, “We are pleased to establish this Joint Venture with ESR, a leading integrated logistics platform, to develop and acquire high-quality industrial and logistics assets in prime locations in India. GIC has been investing in India for more than a decade, and this investment is a testament to our confidence in the long-term potential of this market.” Kishore Gotety, Co-Head (Asia ex-China) of Real Estate, GIC, states, “Continued e-commerce growth in India over the long term, reinforced by rising internet penetration, is expected to drive strong demand for industrial and logistics assets. This is further supported by the emphasis on infrastructure development, changing supply chains, and low vacancy levels. This JV is well-positioned to benefit from these tailwinds, bring institutional-grade assets into this market, and generate resilient returns.” “We are very excited to extend our partnership with GIC as it firmly demonstrates ESR’s capability and track record of developing best-in-class, strategically located industrial and logistics facilities in prime locations across India. This strategic partnership provides us with immediate scale to capitalise on the early growth stages of India’s rapidly modernising industrial and logistics landscape and tap high …

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FM Logistic India to set up intra-city warehousing units in Mumbai, Delhi & Bengaluru

Amid an increasing demand for quick deliveries by online customers, Pune-based FM Logistic India is looking to set up intra-city warehousing units across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, including by converting some abandoned mills into such facilities. The company is in discussion with a closed mill owner in Mumbai, while exploring the possibility of such projects in Delhi and Bengaluru. However, along with this, FM Logistic is also open to set up completely new intra-city warehousing facilities as well, informs Alexandre Amine Soufiani, Managing Director, FM Logistic India. “In the post-COVID-19 scenario, having an intra-city warehousing facility is a must to be able to deliver the goods to the end-customer within hours of placement of an order. But, the land in the cities is costly. We are scouting for warehousing facilities inside the cities of Mumbai and Delhi to either build new multi-story warehouses or to refurbish abandoned cotton mills in Mumbai within the city,” he adds. He said he has to partner with e-commerce and other omni-channel retail companies and offer them multi-customer facilities with intra-city warehouses. FM Logistic India has presence in over 90 locations, and it provides warehousing and distribution logistics services for the FMCG, retail, automotive, e-commerce, engineering, telecom, pharma and other sectors. Soufiani said Mumbai has many closed mills and the company was thinking of partnering with owners of those mills and transforming them into intra-city warehousing. “In Mumbai, we are in talks with one of the mill owners, we are carrying out due diligence and looking at how we can make it safety-compliant, as we do not want to compromise on the safety aspects at all,” he said. He further explains that there are two …

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Roca Parryware ties up with TVS SCS for supply chain solutions

Roca Parryware has announced the strengthening of business tie-up with TVS Supply Chain Solutions (TVS SCS) by the expansion of their area of operations covering the factories, warehouses and import/export logistics. Roca Parryware roped in TVS SCS to support the Supply Chain operations during the year 2018 and since then both the partners have worked together to delight the vast network of more than 2000 customers across India. Roca Parryware operates in India with 8 manufacturing facilities and 12 warehousing stations. Apart from this the company also exports to over 15 countries including USA, Brazil, Australia, China and many parts of Europe. The company continues to import many containers from several countries to meet the growing demands for global products in India. R. Dinesh, MD, TVS Supply Chain Solutions comments, “We are delighted to further extend our partnership with Roca Parryware in India, cementing on the great relationship we had built over the last 3 years of our association. TVS SCS offers the best-in-class digitally led integrated supply chain solutions. The vast network of dealers of Roca Parryware today are a lot more demanding on SCM. With dynamic demand situation and consumers wanting products in a fast and efficient manner, our systems and processes must be digitally integrated to deliver an elevated experience.” Roca Parryware is one of our key customers in this sector not only in India but also globally. We look forward to continuing our mutually beneficial association and help them grow their business consistently” K.E. Ranganathan, MD, Roca Parryware says, “We are extremely happy with our partnership with TVS Supply Chain Solutions over the last 3 years. TVS SCS has added in good measure to our persistent …

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Gxpress to launch Ecomgistics for small parcels, empowering small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs

With an aim to make the postage cheap and easy, Gxpress is all set to launch an operating system called Ecomgistics for e-commerce for small parcels in India, starting from 50 grams. The sellers also have an option to consolidate the small parcels in a single box and send to the desired location. Sellers will get the lowest shipping prices with free small parcel tracking, without sacrificing the quality of service. Its vision is to empower small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs so that they can really focus on their business instead of worrying about operational activities such as shipments, custom clearances and other challenges when are shipping internationally. Gxpress’ easy-to-use website will enable them to book a pickup, estimate cost, and track their packages and more. “The logistics industry has been completely standstill since the start of the beginning of the unprecedented crisis of Covid-19 and lockdowns, ensuring that the supply chains remain intact. Due to the shortage of labour and the restrictions being imposed on the movement of goods and businesses, the supply chain has been disrupted in the past six months. Now, as the businesses started opening, we have planned to launch Ecomgistics for small businesses because we at Gxpress understand the obstacles faced by companies especially when they have to ship small parcels from India but cannot due to high shipping costs. We will focus on empowering small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs in the growth of their customers by giving them the option to consolidate the small parcels in a single box and send to the desired location” said Praveen Vashistha, Founder & Director of Gxpress. Gxpress has a mission to build the …

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Welspun One leases out 9 lakh sq ft warehousing space to FM Logistic India at Bhiwandi

Third party logistic (3PL) service provider FM Logistic India has entered in a contract with Welspun One Logistics Parks to lease warehousing space at Bhiwandi. As per the agreement, Welspun One will lease out about 9 lakh sq ft of warehousing space to FM Logistic India at its Bhiwandi facility for a tenure of five years. The company is investing Rs 900 crore to develop its 110-acre industrial park project at Bhiwandi in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The project has a potential leasable area of 3.2 million sq ft. Welspun One Logistics Parks is in advanced discussions to lease another 1.5 million sq ft with other e-commerce and 3PL companies. “We are committed to solving the location needs of our clients with solutions that are driven to achieve the highest levels of compliance, safety, operational efficiency and innovation,” says, Anshul Singhal, Managing Director, Welspun One Logistics Parks. Despite the ongoing pandemic and the resultant lockdown, FM Logistic India added 10 lakh sq ft of warehousing space under its operations this year. Alexandre Amine Soufiani, MD, FM Logistic India, says, “We are committed to providing our customers with the best-in-class warehousing infrastructure. Our association with Welspun One Logistics Parks will help us further enhance our service offering to our valued customers.”

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Godrej Material Handling launches MOPTro™ for intra-warehousing logistics

With a vision to improve intra-warehousing logistics and supply chain, Godrej Material Handling has announced the launch of MOPTro™, a product of Greendzine Technologies – a motorized order-picking trolley. This is a natural extension to Godrej’s existing product – SKUtro, a manual order-picking system, which was launched last year, to aid in improving shop floor mobility and employee productivity. The pandemic brought about many changes in the functioning of businesses with many city-working people moving back to their hometowns. This reverse migration pivoted e-commerce sales from tier-1 cities to tier-2 cities. Launched in 2019, SKUtro has been seeing a rise in demand from e-commerce, retail and pharmaceutical companies especially over the past few months. Factors such as the past few months of lockdown, the subsequent pent up demand and seasonal festive sales are pushing companies like Godrej to partner on solutions that ensure speedy and accurate order-picking thereby achieving higher throughput. This also ensures that the warehouse employees reap benefits such as better health, safety, and wellness. MOPTro™ revolutionises the everyday manual order-picking practices by simplifying the tedious manual picking process for operators, ensuring accurate picking and put-away. The software on the mobile device attached to MOPTro™ helps in showing the fastest aisle route to picking a product thus enabling greater throughput. According to statistics released in the public domain by research organizations on the recent sales by Amazon and Flipkart, 91% of Amazon’s and 65% of Flipkart’s new customers came from smaller cities. Therefore, in order to fulfil such high demand, timely picking solutions are of high importance. India is a relatively young nation with a large slice of the population being sub 35 years in age. They like to try new experiences …

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OM Logistics unveils 23-acre warehouse in Pune, invests Rs125 crore

In line with the company’s vision, OM Logistics has expanded its warehousing facility with the inauguration of a novel project at Chakan, Pune. The upcoming and actively unfolding industrial hub of Chakan will serve as an ideal location through which the company hopes to serve all industries with logistics solutions. With an investment totaling Rs 125 crore, the new warehousing facility sprawls across 23 acres and is situated near the main highway with proposed warehousing capacity of 3,50,000 square feet. During Phase 1 of construction, 1,50,000 square feet of the warehousing park has already been built, while Phase 2, aiming for another 2,00,000 square feet, is proposed to be completed soon. Raghav Singhal, Director, Om Logistics, said, “We are happy and excited to launch the new, state-of-the-art warehouse facility at Chakan, Pune. With the new facility and investment, we will have an enhanced capability to fulfill logistics and warehousing solution for any business. Our strategy always aims to provide the best-in-class services that reach every corner.” “We are already equipped with advanced warehouse technology system & latest software that spans across 20 million square feet pan India. With the growing facilities, we are currently servicing over 19,000 Pin Codes and more than 1500 locations throughout the country. As the need for logistics and supply chain management grows, we want to enable companies to grow to their full potential, for which, we are looking forward to expanding our base to many more locations in the near future,” he added. Akash Bansal, Marketing Head, OM Logistics, said, “For more than two decades we have been aiming for and have constantly been offering world-class service to our clients with the best facilities and …

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SafeStorage expands its footprint; launches 10,000 sq ft warehouses at Chennai and Pune

In its efforts to expand its business, SafeStorage has launched operations in Chennai & Pune. The Chennai warehouse, located in Vaanagaram and the Pune warehouse, located in Wagholi are both 10000 square feet facility. The company has over 3.2 lakhs square feet space spread across 30+ warehouses. Owing to the lockdown and ‘Work from Home’ scenario for a foreseeable future, self-storage facilities have seen a significant rise in demand; as people have moved out of their rented apartments back to their native places. The numbers enquiries have also seen a big surge. Sharing his thoughts, Ramesh Babu M, CEO & Co-Founder, SafeStorage, said, “We started in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, with IT Professionals being our main target audience. After we received great response, our research indicated that in Chennai & Pune are the other top two markets where there is demand for self-storage facilities. SafeStorage® is one of the pioneers in the storage facility sector in the country and we are committed to offer our services to our patrons through the nation. Our aim is to be present across nine cities in India by end of 2021. As a part of our growth strategy, we will also be venturing into the packers and movers business by early next year.” The company strives to provide a safe, secured and insured space, making self-storage experience easy with all the necessary care, using fire extinguishers, smoke detectors and periodical pest control. The company provides short term, long term and temporary storage space that are designed to offer economical and easily accessible.

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V-Trans to commence operations in SAARC countries, celebrates 62nd Foundation Day

With a primary focus on BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India & Nepal), V-Trans India has announced the commencement of its operations in SAARC countries on its 62nd foundation day. Initially, the service will primarily be focused on surface movement and will soon be covered with express and multimodal. On this M. K. Shah, MD, V-Trans says “This is one more milestone in our journey to become one of the most reliable and trusted players in the logistics business. The starting of our operations to SAARC countries is the beginning of a new chapter in the history of our company. We have been able to successfully manage the current scenario and looking forward to many more accomplishments in the near future. While the present times are challenging and tough, our team has gone all out and brought the best possible results, which are fully supported and integrated with the advanced technology and a collaborative approach.” One of the highlights for the company has been the successful management of the impact of the COVID pandemic. The company adapted quickly to the situation, digitised the processes, enabled smooth flexi working, and most importantly modified the decision-making process thus leveraging maximum to its advantage. It has undertaken several initiatives in the last couple of months towards the aim of achieving service excellence. The objective has been to ensure smooth conduct of its operations and maintaining high-quality standards in terms of delivery.

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