Advantages of Smart Warehousing in India

Advantages of Smart Warehousing in India

The warehousing industry in India is undergoing revolutionary changes and the warehouses in India are becoming increasingly sophisticated. The traditional philosophies that surrounded the supply chain are morphing drastically to be in sync with the evolution of supply chain and the advent of e-commerce, prompt response systems, supply chain integration and just-in-time production and delivery systems. The philosophies surrounding warehousing are taking a new turn because of the following factors.

  • Globalization and its impact which has resulted in the boost of the Indian economy which in turn has enhanced the demand for newer products.
  • Economic reforms such as the global rationalization of tax systems.
  • Improved logistics which has sprung from better transportation and enhanced communication systems.

 This has modified the roles of the warehouses. Now companies have started adopting a newer perspective to supply chain which has matured from the traditional cost-centric approach and evolved into a profit-driven approach, meant to earn more revenue by satisfying the needs of the consumers. 

How have the warehouse roles changed in the recent past :

From being just a storage and stocking option as they were in the past, warehouses have undergone betterment in their utility portfolio. Warehouses have now become consolidation centers for multiple sourcing locations. These include being a sorting center for customer end deliveries and an assembly point for real fabrication processes as well as kitting and bundling.

The wave of opportunities that have emerged in the supply chain is bound to increase the importance of zero-defect, highly precise, high-speed warehouses which deal in a multitude of small transactions with a huge product variety as well as efficiently perform more value-added services. The advent of bigger, faster and technologically advanced warehouses have been changing the warehousing operations for the better.

The increasing opportunity of warehousing in India :

The Indian industry is currently loaded with both types of warehouses, which encompass the modern, multi-facility logistics centers as well as the traditional storage facilities or godowns. The big players of the organized sector control the modern warehousing facilities whereas the godowns belong largely to the unorganized sector of the industry. Though the share of the organized sector is extremely minute at that point of time and comprises of about 10 percent of the 500 million square ft of warehousing space that is valued at around 50 billion rupees annually, it has a bigger share of about 15 percent when it comes to the value. Therefore, this sector is teeming with opportunities for investment for considerably high future returns. Therefore more establishments are becoming increasingly interested in investing in this sector and warehousing industry is expected to grow around 9 to 10% annually. 

Smart warehousing is the need of the day : 

The perception of companies on the supply chain is changing and that has called forth a massive change in the warehousing sector as well. The supply chain is now viewed as a profit center that can increase the worth of the companies and their revenues as well as overall profitability. In the Indian scenario, the need for smart warehouses springs from the necessity of improved processes, technology, equipment, trained workforce as well as developed infrastructure. A few features of smart warehouses can be summarised below. 

 

  • Scalable – Customers are in need of long term warehousing solutions that can cater to huge volumes while maintaining SKU complexity as well as being cost-effective.
  • Mechanization-compatible – Companies are looking out for high throughputs and high-density warehouses that can perform as multifaceted logistics centers and therefore it is imperative that these distribution centers should be mechanized and controlled by sophisticated warehouse management systems.
  • Accurate – Companies will not tolerate any kinds of mistakes in their warehousing systems and therefore they require their warehouses to ship orders to perfection; not offering any chance to missed or damaged and misplaced deliveries.
  • Responsive – Companies require their supply chain to be agile and their warehouses to be responsive to the maximum degree. The infrastructure is required to undertake extremely swift actions and the workforce involved in the warehousing operations is encouraged to get similar results. 
  • Transportation Friendly – It is essential to ensure that transportation operations are seamless for both inbound and outbound logistics and hence the importance of warehouses to be conducive to all the emerging modes of transportation is evident.

 

Thus Smart Warehousing and smart solutions to the supply chain are of utmost importance and this is going to radicalize the Indian warehousing scenario in the immediate future.

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