Category Archives: Warehousing

Explaining why technology cannot be disruptive for the industry, Amit Malakar, Chief Customer Officer, Welspun One, shares, “With disruptive technology coming in the picture, we have come a long way from godowns to warehouse with cubic capacity. The next level of disruption probably came in where the goods started coming to us and we did not need to go to pick the goods with the help of Automated Storage & Retrieval System (ASRS). The next level is now we could manage everything sitting at home with few people at the site but technology is helping us to manage lot of things remotely. With technology we are able to do things much more efficiently.”

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.”

Amazon India expanded its fulfilment infrastructure in Telangana with the opening of two new fulfilment centres in Hyderabad. With this infrastructure, Amazon.in now offers storage capacity of more than 4.5 million cubic feet spread across four fulfilment centres to its more than 23,000 sellers in Telangana. It has also expanded an existing sort centre to offer an overall sorting area of more than one lakh square feet, in Telangana. This expansion will help sellers offer a wider selection and enable faster deliveries of customer orders within the region and neighbouring states ahead of the upcoming festive season. The expansion in Telangana is a part of the company’s recently-announced plans to add 10 new fulfilment centres and expand seven existing sites, across India. “Amazon and Telangana have partnered on several initiatives since the commencement of our operations in India with our largest fulfilment centre in the country located in Hyderabad. We are delighted to extend the partnership further with this additional investment in the State helping us deliver safely to our customers at their doorstep,” said, Prakash Kumar Dutta, Director of Fulfilment Centres & Supply Chain, Amazon India.

Developed by operator Fraport, Swissport Cargo Services Deutschland is set to open a new cargo handling warehouse at Frankfurt Airport. Swissport is aiming to start operations at the facility in November. Located in CargoCity South at Frankfurt Airport (FRA), the new building has 17,000 sq m of floor space, including temperature-controlled zones for handling sensitive pharmaceutical products. There are also 2,400 sq m of office and communal space. Willy Ruf, Senior Vice President – Central & Eastern Europe, Swissport International, said, “From November, we will be in a position to handle the cargo of our customers in Frankfurt in one of Europe’s most state-of-the-art air cargo centers. Our new cargo warehouse has 50 per cent more handling capacity and is therefore a commitment to growth at Frankfurt Airport. With the integrated Swissport Pharma Center, which has several cooling zones, we are well-equipped to satisfy the stringent requirements for the temperature-controlled transportation of medicines and vaccines.” “The property meets the stringent requirements of a cutting-edge air cargo handling facility,” said Felix Kreutel, Head – Real Estate and Energy, Fraport, in adding, “The warehouse connects the airside and landside areas of the airport through separate freight yards. Moreover, its ground-breaking material-handling system represents an important step in the continued automation of our freight processes.

Sharing the challenges, John Thomas, Group Director, Realistic Realtors & Reach Promoters and Director at CIRIL (Commercial Real Estate Advisors), says, “The limitations of warehousing industry was and still is infrastructure; mostly an A-grade warehouse. Though it has improvised a lot; the share of A-grade warehouse would rather be approximately 40 per cent as of now and has increased by 20-25 per cent. The other limitation is the process of constructing and making an A-grade warehouse, from land cause to overall construction it includes various laws and implied approvals which take their own time and cost. We are growing and getting towards a more organised way of doing things and I am sure the government agency will definitely support this entire cause and make it more-friendly for developers.”

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 a plan to strengthen its local footprint in India over the next few years, Schenker India opened its largest warehousing hub in the country. The first phase of the warehouse spans over a space of 25,000 sq mts located in Badli, Gurgaon which is close to the KMP (Kundli Manesar Palwal) expressway and strategically located for effective and efficient supply chain management within NCR and North India. Vishal Sharma, CEO of Cluster India & Indian Sub-Continent, DB Schenker said, “It is a milestone development in the overall Contract Logistics strategy for the organisation after years of careful planning and preparation. It is also a strong testament to DB Schenker’s long term commitment to India as it is one of its most strategically important market in the global network and is projected to grow over 100% by 2025.” Equipped with digital technologies, this state-of-the-art warehouse is fully radio frequency-enabled, equipped with 100% consignment scanning feature, conveyor for operation movement, automated shutters, TAPA compliant & FM Global compliant fire prevention & suppression system, Green Building certified by GBCI under EDGE platform, and access control enabled doors among a slew of many other features

To meet demands of customers for re-export & long-term storage of bonded cargo at minimal logistics cost, Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) has opened India’s first on-Airport Public Bonded Warehouse. Operated by Cargo Service Center (CSC), the 10,000 sq ft warehouse facility will be under the jurisdiction of the City Commissionerate, Bengaluru Customs. This facility will reduce supply chain costs and facilitate trade at India’s IT hub and surrounding regions. The Public Bonded Warehouse will help re-export of goods, long-term storage of bonded cargo, assist in partial clearances and allow value-added services such as labeling, packing and repacking services. “At BIAL, our vision is to make BLR Airport a cargo hub, equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure and cutting-edge technology to deliver efficient operations. In order to simplify processes and meet customer demands with the help of key stakeholders, including the Bengaluru Customs, BIAL has taken this step to set up India’s first on-campus Public Bonded Warehouse. This demonstrates BIAL’s commitment to support the Airport cargo community, as well as bolster the growth of BLR Airport as a cargo hub,” said Satyaki Raghunath, Chief Strategy & Development Officer, BIAL.

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.