Gati speeds up distribution with m-strategy

One of the industry pioneers in express distribution, Gati has historically relied on technology to always create innovative tech based solutions, which could help it overcome challenges it faces on the ground level of execution.

For instance, way back it launched one of the early and exhaustive vehicle tracking systems and used it successfully from 2008. Following the tradition, it has now evaluated and started a project to put in place a process to cut down expenditure and enhance accuracy of its shipping process.

Labor Pains

A pick-up person, a‘Gati Associate', goes to pick up a package from the customer. In the cargo industry, specifically there is a ‘docket' that is ready for pick-up; or say, manufacturer ‘A' sends a docket and the job of the pick-up person is to collect this; and a sticker has then to be pasted on this with details such as package number.

If there are 100 such packages, then details have to be filled in 100 times.

The details include origin, destination, pin code and if the pin code of the place is not available, then pin code closer to the service station which may be far away will need to be filled in. Often he may have incurred additional expenses and charges on this. The final requirement is that these details need to be accurately captured on the label.

All this was traditionally a manual activity.

Picking New Ideas

To automate this shipment booking process, ie airway bill entry and package label writing, the solutions had to be mobile in nature and cost-effective too.

"We could also not have high-end printers for this and the printing has to be done on the customer premises. The barcode needs to be printed on the label, and the label sticker needs to be highly adhesive and be thick enough to sustain wear and tear during transportation and also be visible for months if required," says G Ravi Kumar, CIO, Gati. The size of each of the sticker is 70mm x 70mm and is unlike any normal receipt.

He further reveals the constraints, "We evaluated several solutions; these turned out to be highly expensive solutions-hand held devices for instance, which were costing `70,000-1 lakh in addition to the printer. We were in search of low-end innovative solutions-a low-cost mobile device with a mobile printer that could easily fit in the palm of the pick-up person. After trials and errors with the mobile device, we then spent some time identifying the right printing product that could utilize bluetooth connectivity between mobile device and the printer."

 

A 4-member team evaluated and trials of piloting were then due. Once convinced and then finetuning the software, from March 14, 2012, it was rolled out in a select location. Then 400+ locations were identified. A major constraint was that the pick-up people specially were not IT-savvy. So next, they were trained by the IT people for the entire process who spent time with select personnel identifying how the day would be and what were the hiccups, how these could be identified and sorted, etc.

Delivering the Efficient Way

Finally, a very innovative mobility solution project was rolled out at 6 major locations covering 250 Gati pick-up personnels. Now this is a cost-effective technology based solution, which has reduced the time taken, increased the accuracy and helped in load planning for the docket, as how much is the load cannot be known at real-time.

The integration of printing from a low-end mobile device using bluetooth handheld receipt printer that too in real-time and with so much details, including barcode on thick adhesive sticker ,is indeed a very unique and innovative solution. Thus this solutions helps in capturing the airway bill details in real-time through a low-end handheld mobile device and also most importantly generate a bar-coded package label (customized label stickers with full details such as destination, number of packages, sequence number of package, assured date of delivery etc) using a handheld mobile printer again in real-time at customer premises. This whole process helps in reducing the pick-up time at the customer premise drastically and also saves time at various points of transit to do scanning of the package thus providing end-to-end visibility.

Gati's IT team developed customized native application using JSP, JAVA and J2ME which supports mobile platforms like Android and Symbian. An android app that was developed as part of the solutions helped capture the entire airway bill, and a major advantage was that it had a better GUI and when offline, can also be used. If the pick-up person is at a place where there is no signal, the app helps synchronize with the server the moment he is within range.

Automation to the Rescue

In terms of benefits, with manual writing, at the most 2 labels were being prepared in a minute and that too prone to some errors, but now 3 labels are being prepared and 30-40 stickers are being printed. "Accuracy is enhanced, and with real-time capture from and into the central server, we could save 1 hour per person per day. The hand held device also costs us only 1/5th of any previous hand held device solutions. Java enabled mobiles now come in the range of `6,000-10,000 and are affordable," adds Ravi Kumar.

Thus the solutions has improved booking and dispatch processes and helped save 200 man hrs per day for pick-up personnel (after full rollout it will be 500 man hrs saving per day). It has facilitated advance load dispatch planning at the operating units (OU). It has enabled Gati to scan barcodes at the different OU readily. Mainly accuracy is being achieved in the dispatch process with reduction in airway bill data entry time 30-40% and 100% accuracy in data capturing.

The manual fallback is still continuing, it has not been eliminated entirely, but the company shall be doing so in a phased manner.