Adani Logistics experiences integration with Ramco ERP

ADANI LOGISTICS LIMITED

As technological advancements shrink the world, India has grown into a globally recognised country where national and international firms are constantly looking for ways and means to expand their business operations and reach. As a result of the huge diversity in India’s topography which has become flat for businesses, the supply chain has taken on a critically important role – almost like the backbone of India’s development. In 2008-09, the overall Indian logistics spend was in the range of Rs. 2.7 trillion, which is equivalent to around 8.2 percent of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

The need of the day is a well-developed logistics industry which works with businesses to create a successful economy

Founded in 1988, the Adani Group is one of India’s fastest-growing business houses. From a trusted trading house, today the group has become a global conglomerate with diverse ventures. One of its flagship ventures is its integrated logistics solutions division, Adani Logistics Limited (ALL). With an all-India licence to manage container train operations on Indian Railways, ALL provides pan-India multimodal logistics service for the movement of goods in containers by train, road, and sea. Not just moving containers, ALL also develops logistics parks which provide ground facilities including aggregation, warehousing, holding, inspection, custom bonding, stuffing/de-stuffing of EXIM and domestic cargo, and loading/unloading of cargo.

Offering end-to-end logistic solutions for handling different kinds of cargo including containers, break bulk dry and liquid cargo, perishables, and project cargo, ALL offers full container, full train load, and less than a full container load service.

ADANI LOOKS TO STREAMLINE ITS FUNCTIONS

As India’s first private container train operator to have its own inland container depot with a capacity to handle up to two lakh twenty-foot equivalent units annually, Adani has its Logistics Park spread over 750,000 sq meters with a bonded warehouse of 5000 sq meters, two railway lines, three electronic weigh bridges and container repair facilities. For such a large, widespread operation, their constant challenge was in integrating their road, rail, and sea operations, especially in the light of the huge quantity and frequency of transactions.

Their second challenge was the lack of an efficient system to track consignments which often resulted in extra work for the staff to track delayed shipments. This was also affecting long-term customer relationships.

Their third challenge had to do with consignment re-handling. As it happens, at container terminals, several activities continuously take place, i.e. arrival of a ship (train or vehicle), unloading and then reloading the carrier, and transportation of containers from the terminal to a warehouse where containers are stacked for disbursement. The quality of information prior to the arrival of a consignment and post-arrival has serious cost implications. For example, optimising carrier space would mean more earnings than having a half-capacity carrier as the operational costs involved in transportation remain fixed immaterial of the size of the load. Not having a seamless integrated system with updated consignment information in real-time was another challenge.

The operations staff, the warehouse, and the logistics people used FoxPro and Excel sheets to capture data which was then e-mailed or faxed. This resulted in delays as well as version control problems. Documents related to consignments would also be lost or misplaced during transactions.

DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE DOMINATES

After evaluating some of the world’s leading ERP solution providers, Adani chose to partner with Ramco for its end-to-end knowledge about the shipping and transportation industry segment.

Ramco’s knowledge of the domain was a result of extensive research into the behavior and business models of logistics providers. It understood the fact that more and more businesses were literally offloading a large part of their business operations onto logistics providers to eliminate major infrastructure investments even as they experienced improved agility in a dynamic marketplace and access to world-class processes all at reduced operating costs.

Adani’s management was impressed with Ramco’s expertise and knowledge in their industry space. The attention to detail and thorough knowledge of this space convinced ALL that Ramco would offer a solution which would be tailor-made for their business.