Amol Jumde, Manager, IT and Business Process, Ameya Logistics Private Limited
Enterprises in the logistics space have been increasingly using information and communication technology (ICT) systems to drive operational efficiencies. These solutions have become critical for tracking shipments and gaining end-to-end visibility. Technologies like internet of things (IoT) and cloud are gaining traction amongst logistics companies for ensuring effective communication with consumers as well as within the organisation. Going forward, the industry is expected to step up its ICT investments for the adoption of technologies like augmented reality, which would optimise the collection, warehouse planning and freight transportation processes. Enterprises in this space talk about their IT strategies, emerging technology trends and future plans for upgrading their ICT infrastructure….
How are telecom and technology solutions helping improve performance and efficiency in the logistics sector? What are the key technology solutions being used?
The solutions being used in the industry include technologies such as RFID and GPS. These two technologies have eased cargo/container and vehicle tracking activity in the logistics sector. Activities that were previously event based and depended on manual action are now equipped with end-to-end automation to provide real-time data. This has increased accuracy and reliability in service and led to time and cost savings.
What is your company’s IT blueprint?
At the WAN side, we have firewalls and routers as customer premises equipment. We also have last-mile connectivity on Wi-Max and radio frequency. As far as enterprise-level applications are concerned, we have the cloud federation service (CFS) Mag 3.0 and RFID-based HAWK system for operation and Infor SunSystems for finance. Moreover, a proprietary mobility application, which will be based on the Android and iOS operating systems and be supported with encryption, multilevel authorisation and secure payment facility, is being developed. Our security framework is based on the ISO 27001:2013 information security management standard. The main applications used for security include firewall consols, active directory-based authorisations and antivirus software.
“Activities that were previously event based and depended on manual action are now equipped with end-to-end automation to provide real-time data. This has increased accuracy and reliability service.” Amol Jumde
What are the new IT initiatives taken by the company? What benefits have you derived from them and what challenges did you face in deploying these solutions?
There are two prominent initiatives that Ameya has taken recently. These are enterprise-level application implementations and RFID-based real-time container tracking solutions. Both these initiatives have enabled us to provide single-window operations and a timely status reporting system to our customers. The challenges we faced were basically on the technology side and the overall scope management of the project. Another challenge we faced since we were among the first few to implement RFID for container tracking was the lack of a standard enterprise-level application in the CFS industry in India.
What has been the impact on the IT requirements of the logistics industry due to the boom in the e-commerce sector?
E-commerce enables direct business-to-consumer or business-to-business engagement with the respective parties. IT has been a major enabler of e-commerce. With the growth of e-commerce, we needed our IT infrastructure to be focused on accuracy, quick response services and information security.
What is the level of adoption of applications such as CRM, SCM and sales force automation in the logistics industry? What is the outlook for the adoption of new technologies like IoT, cloud and big data analytics?
The level of adoption of applications like SCM and cloud technology in the industry is high. The adoption of IoT is moderate in terms of CRM and sales force automation, while that of big data analytics is low at this point of time
