THE AXLE OF ANY LOGISTICS COMPANY IS...

Not technology. Not yet. But technology is helping to strengthen the real backbone of this industry, while also repairing its broken parts. Santosh Ingalkar, Head of Operation at KSH Distriparks, a container logistics solutions company in Pune (operating in areas like seamless transportation network, buffer yard solution, ocean imports, bonded warehouse facilities, and DPD transportation services) tells us more as he also shares why drivers are still the critical piece that holds it all together.

- Pratima H

How crucial is technology in what you do-specially as your posture is that of an integrated IT logistics solutions player in India's container market which is slated to turn into a US$10.3 billion industry by 2028?

We use technology in a number of areas. Like transport management, expense management, warehouse management, customs monitoring and document management. One by one, we have strengthened a lot of these processes with the help as that of technology. We use IT mainly in operations constitutes 80 per cent of our work.

Let's start with TMS (Transport Management System). How early did you begin this and why?

It began six to seven years back. That time everything, from LR to trip sheets, was maintained in a manual way expenses, funds, and driver advances etc. We were, hence, facing a lot of person-dependent limitations. If a regular person was not making the data entry someday, there were chances of some details being missed. Changing it to an automated system has ensured that the system does not move to the next step unless all details are provided. This has given us a lot of savings.

How does IT help in areas like documents and customs?

Customs is an area that needs a lot of documentation - hundreds of pages per set. In 2021, we implemented a document management system. Now we can directly store and tag documents from the emails we get from importers and exporters. We use smart metadata for data organization and retrieval.