The rise of ColdEX with cloud-based WMS

All about ColdEX – a premier cold chain company

ColdEX is one of India’s leading cold chain companies, offering one-stop solutions to meet temperature controlled supply chain requirements across the country. Established in 2007, the company has deep expertise in handling of temperature sensitive products between +25°C to -18°C.

They have over 850 refrigerated trucks, 1,500 employees, 55 branches and five warehouse locations, with their clients including leading brands in confectionary, food-processing, pharmaceutical, meat, poultry, and the fruit and vegetable industries.

The journey so far

Temperature controlled logistics is an expanding industry in the country, currently estimated at Rs 12,000–15,000 crore, with an estimated growth of 20 percent. The key driver of this growth is the surge in consumption of perishable, temperature sensitive goods.

A pioneer in this space, ColdEX recently raised over 250 crores in fresh rounds of funding from Hong Kong-based Asia Climate Partners.

We worked with ColdEX to transform their business by automating their operations and helping them fulfill B2B orders.

The bottlenecks

The company, which was awarded ‘India’s Best Cold Chain Logistics Service Provider’ by Frost and Sullivan in 2015, faced several challenges while scaling up.

ColdEX needed a solution to streamline their operations – giving them the ability to manage, assign and track orders, allowing for the real-time visibility of inventory across locations. The roadblocks were –

Manual processes

• which in turn resulted in lower efficiencies and delayed shipments, a serious issue when handling perishable goods.

Mismanagement of orders

• They did not have the ability to assign orders to warehouses on the basis of location – which led to higher delivery times.

Lack of inventory management processes

• ColdEX handled the logistics requirements of several brands – which is why segregation of inventory on the basis of the clients was essential. The lack of this capability made it difficult for them to optimize their operations.
• Visibility and management of inventory as per locations were hard to manage.
• Real-time visibility of inventory across different geographies was difficult.
• The inability to track inventory across locations led to higher turnaround times.

How we helped

We helped ColdEX grow. How did we do it?

• We implemented an end to end solution, Vin eRetail WMS, to help them mitigate the challenges arising from warehouse management. Vin eRetail WMS also suggested putaway for inventory in different temperature zones.
• Our solutions helped ColdEX manage batches of inventory, as well as segregate inventory as per clients – including Burger King, Wendy’s, Carl’s Jr etc., thereby enabling them to track inventory and increase efficiency.
• A common problem with their systems was mismanagement while assigning orders to warehouses. Our solution helped them manage orders across multiple warehouses – removing redundancies in their systems.
• By providing them with the real-time visibility of inventory across geographies, we enabled them to fulfill orders in a timely fashion.
• We helped them manage their tax requirements, and handle complex tax structures across the country including Octroi.

What lies ahead?

India’s cold chain industry is set to reach a market size of US$13bn in 2017 – a growth wave that ColdEX is prepared to ride.

Plans in the offing comprise the addition of 80,000 pallets to its cold storage capacity over the next three years, which includes adding 12 new distribution centers to cover 90% of the urban population.

The coming years will see the cold chain leader establish a pan-India warehouse footprint, develop and expand its transportation network.

We continue to work with ColdEX to help them grow.

As eCommerce grows, 3PLs like ColdEX, Holisol, etc. would like to move towards B2C eCommerce fulfillment.

With our ready integrations with last-mile fulfillment companies, we can empower key logistic players to go B2C with ease.

Our suite of products helps 3PLs achieve their expansion plans via ready integrations with leading marketplaces globally, over 20+ last mile delivery providers & leading retail /manufacturers’ ERPs.

Read the complete story of how we helped ColdEX go from strength to strength here.

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