The importance of frictionless logistics in an economy needs no reasoning. Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget 2019 speech, stressed the importance of robust physical connectivity1 in achieving the government’s vision of a $ 5 trillion economy. Government measures across various modes of transport, such as the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, industrial and freight corridors, Bharatmala and Sagarmala projects, Jal Marg Vikas, and UDAN Schemes are important enablers for enhanced logistics.  

The logistics sector in India is also facing issues of inefficiencies, however, owing to which the cost of Indian logistics is 13 to 14 percent of GDP (in developed nations, these costs amount to 8 to 10 percent of GDP). 

The inefficiencies of the logistics in the country lead to reduced competitiveness of Indian businesses. One of the key reasons for low productivity is the lack of automation in logistics. To actually work on this issue, Locus, a technology platform, is using machine learning and proprietary algorithms to automate complex supply chain decisions. The company, started in 2015 by Nishith Rastogi and Geet Garg, is providing smart and scalable solutions to help enterprises gain end-to-end supply chain visibility, increase operational efficiency, reduce environmental impact and streamline the customer experience. The company’s future-ready platform powers deliveries across North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, ANZ, and the Indian Subcontinent. 

In simple terms, Locus’s AI solutions ease the supply chain across diverse industries globally. The entire process of supply chain, from planning to execution, is mainly manual and hence have many human touchpoint. There are various value leakages in the form of poor forecasting, poor demand planning, or excess inventory. Value leaks occur in cases of mismatch and in value system between provider and business partner. This could include missed opportunities to create value or when solutions fail to meet the needs and expectations of customers. 

Mostly businesses 5-8% of sales loss is incurred by companies due to these process issues or inefficiencies. The company’s mission is to help clients worldwide simplify complex decision-making in the supply chain and achieve operational excellence and end-customer delight. 

Locus has two AI-enabled solutions; Locus DispatchIQ and Locus TrackIQ. DispatchIQ automates delivery route planning and helps grow businesses. Locus TrackIQ enables companies to track their fleet in real-time, analyze the data, and develop insights to take strategic decisions.   

According to Mohneesh Saxena, SVP, Product at Locus, “The whole idea behind DispatchIQ platform is to ensure that customers do more with less. They be able to manage demand fluctuations and still achieve operational efficiency.” 

TrackIQ platform is helping customers not just with the logistics but also with other parts of the supply chain. The different parts of the supply chain, such as procurement, manufacturing, logistics & distribution, and selling, are also optimized using automation.  

The company has various reputed clients such as licious, Blue Dart, Nestle, Myntra, Tata, Mondelez International, and many more who are using this future-ready platform to automate global supply chain decisions. 

Talking about the idea that is powering the systems, Mohneesh touched upon Geocoding engines. Geocoding is the computational process by which a physical address is converted into geographic coordinates, which can be used for a variety of mapping applications. This converts addresses into mathematical longitude and latitude, allowing algorithms to compute them easily. Geocoding engine was the first proprietary piece built by the company, which has state-of-the-art coverage in India and South East Asia.  

Vehicle routing and scheduling engine called Routing engine clean and advance form of capacitated vehicle routing problem. 

Locus is using AI-enabled solutions for use cases as follows: 

• Last-Mile Routing- Last-mile routing is a money guzzler for companies. The last leg of any shipment makes up close to 30% of the entire transportation costs. Every failed delivery, incorrect route taken increases delivery costs exponentially. 
• Dynamic Route Planning- Customers have become accustomed to getting their orders delivered immediately. But the dynamic allocation of tasks is a problem, and even a small error could have a domino effect and lead to a bad customer experience. 
• Field Service Dispatch Planning- Field service dispatch planning is a tedious and time-consuming task for operations managers. The rise of on-demand services has also become increasingly complex because task assignment has become real-time. 
• Territory-Based Route Planning- With burgeoning last-mile delivery orders in cities, it is increasingly becoming impossible for logistics planners to plan routes. 
• Reverse/ Returns Logistics- Customers demand returns as a regular option when it comes to online shopping. To ensure a good customer experience without exponentially increasing costs it is important to have seamless reverse logistics operations in place. 

 As a labor surplus country, India needs a huge push in technology to meet global standards. Platforms like the ones from Locus are much required to deal with the overall high logistics costs and provide the best customer service. India’s supply chain and logistics can be improved using technology platforms that use machine learning and proprietary algorithms to automate complex supply chain decisions.