It goes without saying that the logistics sector shares a common interest with society in advancing trade and accelerating job creation, increased opportunities for business growth throughout market connectivity and wealth creation for billions of consumers worldwide. A successful supply chain is one that shares data between multiple parties - manufacturers, customs departments, logistics providers and retailers. All cities are concerned with flows: of people, vehicles, goods, services, waste, energy and even data. Larger cities, with ever-greater complexity, will require increased levels of control to coordinate freight flows, and possibly eliminate extraneous vehicle movements. The situation today in many cities is sub-optimal with, on average, trucks plying less than half full and many businesses receiving numerous deliveries over the day, when one or two full truckloads would suffice.
Consolidation centers store goods bound for the same location and can be aggregated and stored until the optimum time for delivery, often during off-peak periods. DHL's Smart Truck allows fright deliveries not only to be tracked but planned and updated in a real time environment. The global penetration of smartphones offers new possibilities of logistics solutions customized for individual citizens. Shipping is increasingly reliant on IT - from navigation to propulsion, from freight management to traffic control.
Post harvest losses manifest themselves at any point between harvest and consumption. Causes: poor harvesting and handling practices, inadequate techniques for drying and monitoring moisture levels; lack of appropriate storage leading to bio-deterioration or pest-attack; and inefficient transportation. Other factors include poor marketing and distribution policies and inadequate financial infrastructure that affects, for instance, the ability of producers to get payments for their goods or to finance their activity.
In the case of India, one of the core reasons behind the persistently high level of wastage is the extreme level of fragmentation involved in both production and food supply chains as a whole - all the way from harvesting to handling, threshing, drying, storing, transporting, performing quality control, processing, packaging, marketing and distribution to final consumption. Agricultural production is often dominated by small farmers who have limited access to technologies and financial resources. They do no possess, for instance, the equipment required to ensure proper temperature at storage and there is lack of understanding of how to efficiently handle produce. On top of this transport systems and warehousing are often underdeveloped. As a result of which transport costs are particularly high in rural areas. The World Bank estimates that transport costs per ton-kilometer from farm to primary markets are 3-5 times higher than those from secondary to wholesale markets in capital cities.
In the case of India, one of the core reasons behind the persistently high level of wastage is the extreme level of fragmentation involved in both production and food supply chains as a whole - all the way from harvesting to handling, threshing, drying, storing, transporting, performing quality control, processing, packaging, marketing and distribution to final consumption. Agricultural production is often dominated by small farmers who have limited access to technologies and financial resources. They do no possess, for instance, the equipment required to ensure proper temperature at storage and there is lack of understanding of how to efficiently handle produce. On top of this transport systems and warehousing are often underdeveloped. As a result of which transport costs are particularly high in rural areas. The World Bank estimates that transport costs per ton-kilometer from farm to primary markets are 3-5 times higher than those from secondary to wholesale markets in capital cities.
