Warehouse Automation in India

 

Hi I’m Arun R, student of Amrita School of Business, Ettimadai, and  in my last blog I emphasized more on the latest technological advancements of warehousing. And I’m continuing on this with focusing more on why this sudden rush towards automation or technological improvements concentrating more on India. A robotic revolution has started in India over the last few years by the warehousing technologies where we can see a rapid growth. This has made India a key market for warehouse management system especially in Asia. Additionally, with the low production cost in India, many manufacturers are coming to India to set up their units.

The reason behind the sudden surge in the automation in warehousing can be credited for many reasons and the main one is the improvement in efficiency and quality and reduces the human labor. And also, for a firm to become more competitive they have to balance between both the responsiveness and efficiency and warehouse automation helps in this regard for a certain extent. Flipkarts deal with Pitney Bowes- an Australian company, known for their automated parcel sorting and data capturing system is an example of how serious firms are on this. Also, many e-commerce companies like GreyOrange are combining with the PCG companies, like Myntra and Pepper Fry to set the base in India. They have already implemented in more than 50 warehouses in India and abroad.

Earlier the use of technology in e-commerce sector was more based on the shipment tracking. But the increase in competition and the expectation of the customers made the e-commerce firms to expand the technology for faster and safe delivery of the products to the customers. A shift in the dimension saw e-commerce giants competing on faster delivery and warehouse automation is considered as the backbone of these e-commerce firms.

Technologies like self-driving vehicles, automated inventory storage etc. are making it easier and helps them to become more competitive for e-commerce firms. They not only save money but also improves the efficiency. And with the current situation of Covid 19, where many employees cannot make it to the work area, this automation helps the e-commerce firms to deliver the products to the customers on time. With social distancing the new normal, and with less number of workers due to automation will also added advantage for e-commerce firms as they have to work under the standard operating procedures given by the government of India.