Our digitization initiatives enabled us to quickly switch to digital remote assistance during the pandemic.

Anil Lingayat

- EVP and Business Head, Godrej Material Handling

Tell us about the importance of efficient material handling system in current times

The current demand for forklifts is largely driven by the rapid evolution of India's e-commerce, modern retail and organized logistics sectors. All these industries are dependent on lean warehouse operations. Warehouse storage and material handling are undergoing a transformation from traditional to modern infrastructure, with an emphasis on productivity, safety, accuracy, assurance of consistency, efficiency in operations as well as quicker turnarounds. They also need to economize on their footprint, utilize vertical space and conserve energy. 

Manufacturers are increasingly focusing on improving the efficiency of their material movement, both inbound and outbound, to increase outputs to remain competitive. With increased palletization of goods across the industry, the material movement using mechanized handling equipment is much faster and safer. The scarcity of labour, job opportunities available in the service sector and the rising cost of land is driving the demand for forklift trucks even among MSME companies.

Despite the sharp slowing of economic activity during the lockdown, India's forklift industry revived late but smartly reached the same level as the year before the lockdown. Much of this growth came due to buying by MSME companies who faced labour challenges due to possible labour migrations during the initial lockdowns and fear of the pandemic. They had to mechanize handling operations to drive throughput in their operations.  Given the growth that has been witnessed in the Material Handling industry, we are confident that the forklift industry will continue to grow at least at 8-10% over the next few years.

Tell us about what are the clients expecting from players like you.

Equipment that can lift more, reach higher and work in narrow aisles like Crown Turret Stock Picker, Godrej Reach Truck and Godrej Articulated Forklift. Godrej Articulated forklift also provides “Dock to Rack” service, i.e., unload equipment at dock to stacking load at high heights into racks. Clients are also looking at electric range of equipment as they offer lower cost of ownership and work on clean energy as opposed to their diesel counterparts.

Owing to the pandemic, companies initially faced challenges in terms of supply chain disruption, tight liquidity, restricted capex budgets, labour shortage and spiking commodity costs. This was accompanied by highly volatile and uncertain demand.  Some of these factors created the need for material handling equipment, whereas the others made it difficult to set aside funds for new forklifts. In turn, rental/leasing needs enhanced, Rental equipment became the first choice for many in the short-term to meet the surges, because the payback cycle for investing in new equipment was delayed. We were ready with our solutions and digitally enabled platform to offer these services.

What are the technological advances achieved by your company in this space?

Godrej Material Handling has been very focused over the last 5-7 years in developing a wide portfolio of fork trucks that are specially designed to work in warehouses. We are in a good position to address almost all handling needs of Indian warehouse operators and more advanced products and capabilities are on the anvil. We offer our customers our own IoT enabled product - Godrej Safelog.

Our digitization initiatives in recent years enabled us to quickly switch to digital remote assistance during and after the lockdown in 2020 and help customers resolve issues at site. In most instances, we did not need to depute a person, something customers also wanted to avoid.

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