Category Archives: Warehousing

Talking about the importance of location while building a warehouse, Thomas highlights, “One can create a location hub and build an A-grade warehouse in order to seek good returns out of that. However, when any institution fund buys a land, the overall infrastructure surrounding it, the overall transportation facility and reachability of a particular place from across the region is very important. So, by location, unlike retail or residential, it means more of accessibility from each and every standpoint; entire logistics has to move around on a 24×7 basis. If that is served, the location can be made to the best benefit. And, for that matter A-grade warehouse is very important because even if the location is slightly off but if a developer tends to make an A-grade facility, it is still workable.”

Imperial Logistics has expanded its latest multi-user warehouse capacity, located in Werne, Germany, by 30 per cent with the leasing of a further adjacent unit. The additional space brings the total under-cover storage area to almost 30,000 sqm. The extra warehousing will be part-racked for pallets, while some of the new floor space will be left open for handling and storing of outsize goods. The facility now has a total of 25 truck doors, together with a large yard and parking area of 7000 sqm. which is ideal for manoeuvring large items. The complex also features container loading and unloading facilities, and incorporates a paperless order picking system. The expansion of the facility has been necessitated by organic business growth within the facility’s two launch customers, but some 50 per cent of the additional capacity created will be reserved for anticipated new clients. “Our multi-user warehousing concept is already facilitating major efficiencies for our two launch customers at the site, and is gaining considerable attention among other potential customers. We expect to fill the additional space quite quickly, and we still have the option to expand further,” says Christian Lohmann, Vice President Commercial Industrial at Imperial’s International business.

Strata, a tech-enabled fractional investment platform for premium commercial real estate (CRE), has raised Rs 140 crore from investors to buy three grade-A warehousing asset opportunities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Situated in Hosur, Strata Avigna Warehousing I and II has received 100 per cent commitment from investors within just 42 days of its launch. The assets are expected to offer investors an average rental yield anywhere between 9.5 per cent and 10 per cent year-on-year. These three assets, to be owned fractionally by investors, collectively account for 0.7 million sq ft of warehousing space. “With global supply chains diversifying away from China to India, greater penetration of e-commerce, faster shift to 3PL, and companies eyeing higher inventory levels, we foresee an approximately 30 per cent growth in warehousing facilities in the coming years,” said Sudarshan Lodha, Founder, Strata.

Snapdeal has announced that it has added eight logistics centres to its network across manufacturing hubs, including Mathura, Noida and Mumbai, ahead of the festive season. The expansion is part of a decentralised network designed by Snapdeal, where its centres are located within commercial hubs inside a city to ensure faster pickup of packets from the sellers. The new centres are located inside the manufacturing hubs at Bahadurgarh, Yamuna Nagar (Haryana), Rajkot (Gujarat), Bhiwandi (Maharashtra), Agra, Noida, Mathura (Uttar Pradesh) and Mumbai. The expansion is a part of pre-Diwali increase in capacity to cater to the festive spike in volumes. These new centres will cater to manufacturers and sellers of decor and furnishing items like lights, curtains, bedsheets, kitchenware and apparel, including sarees and ethnic wear. All these items are expected to witness high festive sales volumes due to an increase in the number of Indians preferring to buy online for convenience and safety reasons

Considering Rudrapur as one of the largest industrial hubs of Uttrakhand and is a crucial location from supply chain & logistics perspective, Safexpress has announced the launch of its ultra-modern Logistics Park in Rudrapur. This state-of-the-art facility is strategically located on National Highway 109. The Logistics Park will serve as a nodal point for supply chain & logistics in the region. This facility is based at a strategic location and has strong connectivity with all Indian states. The Rudrapur Logistics Park enables loading & unloading of over 100 vehicles simultaneously, which ensures smooth and uninterrupted movement of goods. Operations at the Logistics Park are highly streamlined, which ensures the country’s fastest transit-time from Rudrapur to over 1,131 destinations across India.

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.

Talking about the impact of COVID-19 on warehousing, John Thomas, Group Director, Realistic Realtors & Reach Promoters and Director at CIRIL (Commercial Real Estate Advisors), at CargoTalk’s fourth digital conclave says, “Warehousing industry was booming and escalating leaps and bounds before COVID-19. The virus brought disruption but for a very short time. He continues, “By the end of this year or early 2021, the industry will bounce back. It has already started and there are certain arenas where the warehousing sector remained positive during the COVID times as well depending upon the industry. Coming to the limitations the sector is facing from years, he says, “Infrastructure and mostly A-grade warehouses have always been a challenge.”

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.”

The fourth edition of CargoTalk digital conclave will begin today at 10 am till 12:15 pm. There will be two sessions each of one-hour duration, which will lay emphasis on streamlining the future. Experts from logistics and warehousing will share their views. Panelists for first session titled ‘Is logistics industry going contactless’ (10am-11am) will be Cyrus Katgara, President, Air Cargo Forum India, V Raju, Senior Vice President CL – Chemical, Pharma & Food Sector, Avvashya CCI Logistics (All Cargo Group), Satish Lakkaraju, Chief Commercial Officer. For the second session, titled ‘Can warehousing withstand the e-commerce boom?’ (11:15am-12:15pm), there will be Pawan Kumar Agarwal, IAS, Special Secretary (Logistics), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, John Thomas, Group Director, Realistic Realtors & Reach Promoters and Director at CIRIL (Commercial Real Estate Advisors), Naveen Rawat, Director & Co-founder, Holisol Logistics and Amit Malakar, Chief Customer Officer, Welspun One.