Gati ramps up network capacity by 25% to meet festive demand

October 20, 2021: Express distribution company Gati has ramped up its network capacity by 25 percent by adding 100 line haul trucks to its flexi network to connect the demand locations.

Thus, Gati aims to cut down the dwell time further in view of the huge spike in demand during the festival season, billed as the stress-test time for supply chain players.

The additional trucks in the special flexible network based on the market and route dynamics, will connect the key locations to ease the pressure of servicing the demands. The network will reduce dwell time from existing 9 to 5 percent. As many as 19 such grid locations including Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Indore and Kolkata have been identified for this purpose.

Charles Devlin D’Costa, chief of supply chain operations, Gati KWE, said, “We are ready for the festival ride and meet the increased demand during the upcoming season. The network capacity will be enhanced by 20-25 percent while the workforce will be strengthened by at least 15 percent. We are planning to leverage at least 20 percent of existing facilities further to manage the peak season load. Overall, we expect a 15 percent increase in productivity per person. We are tech enabled, especially in the area of artificial intelligence, to meet the purpose. We have set up a monitoring system already in place to ensure a better transit time for the customers. Our aim is to ensure a delivery efficiency of 95 percent+.”

As part of digitalisation, Gati has implemented an enterprise system across the organization called GEMS to streamline information flow, besides incorporating customer-centric tools and technologies to significantly reduce TAT. Apart from launching WhatsApp Bot – Genie, the company has adapted Data Analytics for pricing decisions and routing optimization. It has also put in place three metric monitoring dashboards for real-time monitoring of remote locations, with same-day electronic POD visibility through API integration and online art tracking.

With the upcoming festive sales offered by e-commerce companies, Gati has geared up for the big box deliveries of white goods and FMCG products. It has a network of 1800 business partners, including small and new-age players and added 369 franchises to cater to the spike in e-commerce during the festival season. Business partners utilise the Gati facilities while the franchises have their own facilities.

To cater to the festive demand more efficiently, Gati Air has bolstered its network by partnering with leading airlines providing direct connections to 28 commercial airports in India. This is the third direct airline engagement this year, strengthening network connectivity to 34 commercial Airports. Gati Air aims to provide the fastest and highly reliable connectivity with best in class TAT to its customers by connecting directly to all commercials airports and giving access to all Indian locations with multi-modal networks

Amit Mande - business & operations head - air express & SCM at GATI-KWE, said, “During the festival season, there is space crunch with airlines giving high volume movements by e-commerce players driven by 2X - 4X volume growths due to lucrative deals offered on all products. To hedge the impact, Gati Air has kept options open to move cargo with all leading airlines by having direct and indirect contracts via certified airline agents. The company has trained and dedicated operations team, having a presence at all prominent commercial airports are working 24x7, 365 days with a focus on enhancing customer delight.”

With its end-to-end supply chain logistics backed by integrated analytics, Gati-KWE facilitates a hassle-free flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption, optimising each phase in the logistics process right from transportation to handling.