Bastian Solutions: Engineering India's material handling evolution
Vinayak Bhat, General Manager, Bastian Solutions, sheds light on India’s rapidly evolving material handling landscape. Bhat discusses how the company’s customer-first approach, modular solutions, and Toyota-backed quality are empowering Indian businesses to enhance scalability, throughput, and competitiveness.
From bridging the gap between cost-effectiveness and operational efficiency to delivering tailored automation solutions under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, Bastian Solutions is positioning itself as a trusted partner for businesses aiming to thrive in a dynamic logistics ecosystem.
How has the Indian material handling landscape evolved and what are the country’s unique demands?
The Indian material handling landscape has evolved remarkably in recent years, fueled by rapid growth in e-commerce, retail, and manufacturing. Traditionally, material handling in India faced challenges like limited technology adoption, fragmented logistics, and a shortage of skilled labour. However, there’s now a visible shift toward digitalisation, warehouse automation, and sustainability as Indian businesses strive to meet growing demands for efficiency.
Compared to more developed economies where high consumer expectations drive fully automated systems; India’s needs are distinctly cost-sensitive and demand scalability. While developed markets prioritise cutting-edge automation to enhance speed and accuracy, Indian companies often look for modular, adaptable solutions that offer solid ROI and operational flexibility, addressing the unique demands of the Indian consumer and workforce.
Bastian Solutions approaches the needs of the Indian business with our accessible automation mindset. By focusing on customer-centric automation that adapts to diverse operational requirements, we help clients bridge the gap between cost-effectiveness and efficiency. Our solutions aren’t one-size-fits-all. By aligning with initiatives like 'Make in India' with our local conveyor manufacturing and supporting clients with service areas all over India, we achieve a balance between technological advancement, cost-effectiveness, and life cycle support coverage for every step of their automation journey. This approach has been pivotal in supporting India’s evolving material handling needs, allowing companies to enhance their supply chains and thrive in a competitive environment.
How big is Bastian Solutions in India and the Asia Pacific?
Bastian Solutions’ India office was established in 1996. Its roots go back to 1952 in the United States. In 2017, it was acquired by Toyota Automated Logistics Group, a subsidiary of Japan-based Toyota Industries Corporation (TICO). That acquisition expanded its reach and strengthened its offerings through a network of other material handling companies that create reliable solutions for every distribution and production need.
Whether it is through our 170+ direct employees or employees of sibling companies under the TICO umbrella, such as TMH India, Bastian Solutions provides services in every APAC region.
Bastian Solutions has over 150 successful customer installations in APAC across multiple sectors including consumer goods, automotive, food and beverage, retail, FMCG and e-commerce fulfilment. Global clients and local startups are a part of our strong and diverse portfolio. Serving some of the most dynamic industries, our India team is known for understanding clients’ unique needs and delivering tailored solutions that improve conveyance, productivity, scalability, and operational agility.
We do this through our consultative, customer-focused approach. With end-to-end integration services, we source the best technologies to create customized, streamlined solutions that elevate our clients' conveyance, distribution and operational efficiency. Our right-sized solutions range from transportation and accumulation conveyors to more automated warehouse systems.
Through TICO, we leverage global expertise and uphold the highest standards in operational productivity and safety. It is the combination of our global network, with our 100+ Indian suppliers, our locally manufactured conveyor solutions and our 28 years’ experience serving the Indian business community that have created our lasting ability to serve. Our sales teams travel anywhere our customers need to strategically engage in the right-sized solution for the customer’s order fulfilment goals.
“While developed markets prioritise cutting-edge automation to enhance speed and accuracy, Indian companies often look for modular, adaptable solutions that offer solid ROI and operational flexibility.”
How do your solutions bring competitive advantage to its clients?
We recently built 98 mts of conveyor out of our manufacturing facility near Bangalore for a global e-commerce client of ours distributing out of Hyderabad. Their 98 mts investment made a huge difference in this year's Diwali peak. That is the type of competitive advantage we offer to our clients, a right-sized solution for their current needs and flexible for future expansion. The simple addition of their transport and accumulation conveyors along with high-speed sortation upgrade helped to achieve the expected speeds up to 300FPM in their pack line area. The results were impactful for them reduced order error, inventory damage and operator inefficiency and achieved the expected last mile delivery.
At Bastian Solutions, the competitive advantage we offer takes many forms. Tackling customer pain points through the variety of our flexible and scalable offerings is our main objective. It is always about the customer’s success, no matter what technology we install. Whether it is our locally manufactured, Toyota quality belt and roller conveyor for clients who need material handling basics or more advanced automation systems, the right sized solution for our clients is what makes it competitive for them.
We also recently helped a national automotive supplier with a manufacturing centre in Maharashtra stay competitive with a mix of transport conveyor, accumulation conveyor and pallet conveyor. They wanted to improve their overall system throughput and reduce the error. After a consultation with their Warehouse Manager, we built 65 mts of case handling & pallet handling conveyor to replace their manual packing & sortation work. Their custom conveyor mix helped achieve their goal of improving sortation throughput from 900 Cases per hour to 1800 cases per hour in their export packaging area. They achieved a 100 percent increase in throughput in the export packaging area due to the Bastian Solutions conveyor sortation system.
“Bastian Solutions positions itself to stay ahead by always focusing on what is right for the customer no matter the trend.”
What makes Bastian stay ahead of its competition?
Bastian Solutions offers a robust portfolio of products, but our conveyor systems are the cornerstone of our success in India’s logistics market. Our conveyors are designed for flexibility and efficiency, to address high-throughput and diverse material-handling needs. These systems allow for the smooth, gap-free flow of products by adjusting speed in each zone, which is ideal for managing peak loads in fast-paced environments such as e-commerce and retail fulfilment centres. Our conveyors also come in modular designs, making them easy to integrate within existing systems or scale up as operational needs grow.
Our other warehouse automation solutions further support high-speed operations, enabling businesses to manage inventory, optimize space, and fulfil orders with precision. As clients scale or open distribution centres in more densely packed cities, we offer advanced technologies that maximize vertical storage space and product transport through narrow aisle ways.
Bastian Solutions positions itself to stay ahead by always focusing on what is right for the customer no matter the trend. When we partner with a client we do so with their future growth in mind. Our goal is always a long-term partnership with our clients so that we can help them grow their business over the long haul.
Our key focus is customer-centric, tailored automation—never a one-size-fits-all solution. We design flexible, adaptable systems that evolve with business needs. Our conveyor solutions, for instance, integrate seamlessly with many existing technologies companies want to keep using in their warehouse. Our custom solutions account for maximising the life of existing facility layouts and material handling equipment, while helping companies forecast for future growth. Helping companies enhance profitability and competitiveness is our recipe for success.
By always maintaining a partnership mindset and continually refining our technology, we position ourselves as a trusted, long-term partner in helping businesses succeed in the fast-paced supply chain logistics landscape.
How is Bastian Solutions responding to new market needs?
At Bastian Solutions, we pride ourselves on offering a range of automation options while keeping customer needs at the centre of every solution. For many Indian clients, conveyors serve as the backbone of their material handling systems, providing the reliability and scalability required in fast-growing environments. Whether it’s modular conveyor systems or custom solutions designed and built in India under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, we focus on solutions that align with local requirements. Conveyors offer flexibility, allowing clients to begin with a foundational system that can be expanded as their operations grow. By prioritising modularity and scalability, we help clients enhance throughput and streamline processes without over-committing to complex automation right from the start.
When customers are ready to explore more advanced systems, we provide a consultative approach to evaluating technology. For clients focused on faster order fulfilment and reduced picking times, Goods-to-Person (GTP) systems can transform their operations. Our GTP systems, combined with conveyor technology, bring items directly to operators, eliminating the need for them to move across the warehouse. This enhances productivity, improves accuracy, and makes the best use of available space.
As micro-fulfilment becomes increasingly critical for retail and e-commerce businesses, in densely packed cities across India, we integrate compact storage, efficient picking, and space-optimised conveyors, enabling clients to process orders quickly with limited space and labour. These solutions cater to the growing need for fast, last-mile delivery by creating mini-warehouses that can meet customer demands at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional distribution centres.
In each project, we start with a deep understanding of the client’s unique requirements and then recommend the best solution for their current and future growth. From conveyors to cutting-edge autonomous vehicles, we tailor our offerings to what’s right for the customer—helping them succeed in a competitive landscape.
What is Bastian Solutions’ future in India?
The future of Bastian Solutions in India is to help our clients grow in their markets. Their success is our success. We are a brand of innovative automation solutions that are backed by Toyota quality.
To grow our customers' business, we provide the best combination of technologies to solve their problems today and scale for the future.
Since launching the India office back in the 90s, the most growth we have experienced has been in the past two years. With the launch of our conveyor manufacturing facility last year, we have grown more by providing our clients a locally sourced, option for their conveyance needs.
Continuing to demonstrate our engineering automation integration experience across India is the aim for the future.
This interview was originally published in the Indian Transport & Logistics News' Nov-Dec 2024 issue.
