Today we are in discussion with Ashish Sharma to understand about international supply chain logistics Agri-Equipment. Ashish has expertise in designing & implementing the integrated packaging & logistics solutions for the automotive & agriculture industry.
Give us the brief overview of the supply chain of Agri-equipment
International supply chain logistics of Agri-equipment
Holisol is one of the leading logistics solution providers for Agri-equipment and has dispatched more than 1.5 lakh tractors and 5 lakh major parts such as engines, axles, transmissions etc, across the globe in the last 6 years.
While exporting these equipment’s or parts we either use the returnable or non-returnable type of packaging and transport it as CKD (Complete Knock Down), SKD (Semi-Knock Down) or CBU (Complete Built Unit) basis the requirement of the customer.
What challenges industry is facing due to the prevailing crisis of COVID-19?
As we all know in March, we have financial year closing and in March dispatches are normally higher in comparison to the other months. However, due to the prevailing pandemic, all manufacturing units got closed post 20th March which has severely impacted the export orders of the customers; orders are either on hold or cancelled. The companies have started feeling the disruption earlier than 20th March 2020 due to the non-availability of containers for export dispatches because of a slowdown in global transportation.
What challenges you foresee post lockdown which will impact the logistics operations?
There is some relaxation from the government as per the recent guidelines, however operating during prevailing scenario & post lockdown expects to bring its own set of challenges, such as:
Manpower: Availability of contract labour for operations and support function may continue to be an issue even after the situation normalises. Arranging the manpower again will going to be a problem, those who had the experience of ground-level operations have already moved back to their native places due to COVID-19.
Raw material: Availability of raw material is going to be challenging for Agri equipment and this may lead to short-term fluctuation in prices of raw material.
Transportation: Movement of material will be a challenge due to the unavailability of the drivers and vehicles. Post lockdown demand for vehicles will increase for the movement of raw material, parts and finished goods, as everyone wants to clear their finished goods inventory as soon as possible and want raw material for manufacturing of new products.
New Orders: Due to the global impact of COVID-19 there is a slowdown in demand which may have an impact on the new orders for exports.
Another change we will observe is change of the payment terms to advance instead of post-paid to manage the operational expenses as we are currently observing in the sea freight charges.
How Holisol is resolving the prevailing challenges?
In the prevailing crisis, we are working closely with our customers in helping with business continuity. We have taken the following initiatives to resolve the prevailing challenges:
- Manpower: Currently we are working with our 33% manpower. We have moved some of our team members from their native places on valid permissions documents to continue our operations. We have implemented the MHA guidelines related to the workplace and consistently working with the people in creating awareness to protect themselves and others.
- Raw Material:We have engaged with our current suppliers and identified new suppliers to fulfil our current and post lockdown requirements of raw material to avoid any disruption in the operations.
- Transportation: We have been actively handling the transportation of the finished products or raw material for our current and future dispatches, basis the forecast shared by our customers.
- Holisol Digital Monitoring: With our wide range of digital solutions, our customers gets real-time visibility of the complete process with just one click. With HOPS (Holisol Outbound packaging System), the customer receives real-time alerts on their mobile phone, and with a digital dashboard, they consistently monitor their outbound operations.
Since 01st April 2020, our team is working aggressively in providing an on-time and seamless flow of services to the customers and simultaneously ensuring full compliance with the local authority’s guidelines.
For the future, we will be focussing towards the increase of automation in our processes to minimise the human intervention and mitigate the impact of crisis like this on the operations.
Have any question related to COVID-19 impact on supply chains write to me at [email protected] and I will take it up with our experts in our next “Holistic Talk”.
Or join us at “Holisol Forum” to share your questions or insights, we will be happy to collaborate with you to #fightogether this novel crisis.
