Due to increase in warehouses, the demand for electric MHE has increased.

– Anil Lingayat

Executive Vice President Business Head, Godrej MHE

How do you see the demand outlook and the growth drivers for warehousing equipment of various capacities in godowns as well as in the modern concept of warehousing and distribution hubs? 

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 operation. 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. In order to facilitate reach and penetration in tier II and tier III cities, companies are setting up distribution centers and fulfillment centers enabling the growth of material handling equipment in India.

Furthermore, there is growing awareness of the positive impact on productivity through the use of material handling equipment in the manufacturing industry.  Manufacturers are increasingly focusing on improving 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 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 we have witnessed at Godrej Material Handling, a business of Godrej & Boyce, we are confident that the forklift industry will continue to grow at least at 8-10% over the next few years.

Consolidation of warehouses, shrinking land availability and non-availability of semi-skilled/unskilled workforce has forced for mechanisation and automation. To what extent you have been able to leverage the advantages of technology / automation in your range of material handling equipment?

These factors have indeed driven faster adoption of various kinds of forklift trucks in warehouse operations. Godrej 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. More advanced products and capabilities are on the anvil. As warehouse operations are growing in scale and complexity, technologies such as fork trucks integrating with warehouse management systems, are gaining ground. IoT is another useful tool emerging quite rapidly to monitor fleet health, provide proactive or predictive maintenance and optimize fleet size. We offer our customers our own IoT enabled product – Godrej Safelog. All product manuals and service support are already available on digital platforms to customers.

While productivity, fuel efficiency and ease of operation are important for a material handling equipment, safety is also of paramount importance. Can you elaborate on these features incorporated in your MHE?

Enhancing safety and productivity of forklifts has always been a priority area for us at Godrej Material Handling. Our equipment come with a host of accessories such as Red and Blue safety lights, camera systems, biometric access systems, operator presence systems, automatic slowing around turns, etc. These help to improve safety for the man, machine, goods and property at the user site.

What kinds of after-sales support initiatives have been embraced by you to maintain customer satisfaction and brand value?

Our primary aim is to create a presence within a few hours reach of all industrial clusters where we have a population of Godrej forklifts. Over the years we have created a channel network of close to 100 locations across India. This network receives continuous training inputs, updates and skill development inputs to help serve customers better. Investment in modern software helps us manage customer requests, service schedules and maintain a high level of service delivery.

Godrej also offers the widest range of maintenance plans to customers starting with basic support and going all the way to providing operators for the fork trucks besides servicing and maintenance.

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.

What do you think are the challenges, risk factors and possible new avenues in this MHE space?

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 were 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.

The shift to online buying that resulted out of the pandemic has made e-commerce gain a new, higher level of consumer demand that will persist in the foreseeable future. Moreover, industries were affected by a shortage of labour and today, the need to maintain social distance in the workplace is higher than ever before. Both these factors drove the need to adopt mechanized handling in various forms.

We also expect customers to show interest in IOT based solutions to monitor equipment health, receive alerts, monitor fleet productivity, ensure timely servicing, etc. This will also lead to new business models and very different solutions for customers.

Due to increase in warehouses, the demand for electric material handling equipment has increased. Industries governed by strict norms such as Food & Beverage and Pharma, were already using electric equipment, however, we have recently seen the increase in demand in other industries for their internal as well as inter-plant movement thanks to our outdoor duty forklift truck.

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