IoT powered digital logistics assistant

Transport Hub is a digital logistics assistant which uses IoT (Internet of Things) for logistics and transport. The bootstrapped startup was setup in 2016, with an initial investment of US$ one million. The company offers integrated solutions like Vehicle Optimisation & Profitability Solutions (VOPS), Improvement in Cold Chain Efficiency (ICE), Warehousing and Transportation Turnaround Solutions (WATTS), Technology enabled Real-Time Inventory Management (TRIM) for industries ranging from transportation, to retail, e-commerce to banking, pharmaceuticals to BPO, FMCG to automobile, and others.

“TransportHub.com is a SaaS based first technology platform for surface transport. It is powered by intelligent algorithms, analytics and IoT. The platform automates the entire transportation chain from dispatch, planning to delivery,” says Rohit Chaturvedi, CEO, Transport Hub. The key advantages of the platform, according to him are:

• Reduction in inventory costs by upto 5 per cent through use of efficient transportation
• Increased asset utilisation by more than 2-3 per cent
• Reduction in human involvement by more than 50 per cent
• Reduction in transportation cost by 4-5 per cent
• Leveraging state-of-art technologies without fixed costs

There are many other related advantages like increased demand due to reduction in costs, low carbon footprint, increases employee satisfaction and engagement. “We are a technology platform based on IoT, with a clear understanding of the business needs. Everyone across the supply chain has access to our dashboards that are customised as per their role and responsibilities. With this, every stakeholder is an active participant of the information flow. These insights help them take decisions to make supply chain leaner and better. This means, no matter where you are in the world, your supply chain is at your fingertips, under your full control,” states Chaturvedi.

A few key customers of the company include Adani Wilmar Limited, Shree Renuka Sugars, Kanchan Pharma, Vadilal, Sakata Seeds, etc. Chaturvedi informs that his company provides them seamlessly integrated tech enabled IoT solutions to help them minimise their overall costs and scale up their businesses. “We are a business solution provider and our expertise caters for across industries that actively on a day to basis use logistics and transport to cater to business needs,” he points out.

Reminding that the most crucial benefit for businesses by using the IoT based platform is that one saves upto 18 per cent on their overall logistics costs, he states, “Our service also helps them collect real-time data from across the supply chain, these datas are then converted into insights which are easily actionable. This empowers everyone at the supply chain to take decisions to achieve the long term business goals.”

Affirming that innovation is a way of life at Transport Hub, Chaturvedi shares, “We believe in creating new technology to automate businesses and help them achieve their long term business goals. To bring to light this fact, we have a patent for the product – ICE, a digital cold chain assistant useful for cold chains and warehousing related businesses.” The solution helps automate cold chain operations to reduce losses upto 15 per cent. It helps maintain an optimal temperature when the shipment is on the move, and enables location update and temperature regulation of the cold storages. This gives an instant alert on the mobile device, if the system is even tampered with – this lets the customer have complete control over the system.

The company focuses on the entire value chain of transportation by automating it, while other players focus on either single/multiple IoT products or matching transporters and shippers. “In a nutshell, Transport Hub has been instrumental in increasing productivity and efficiency in a holistic way while competitors only focus on local optima e.g. reduction of cost of transportation,” he asserts.

Future plans include focus on brand building and geographical expansion plan. The company is also in talks with few system integrators to create value for their clients. Chaturvedi believes that the knowledge of tech-integrated automation of logistics and transport industry is a much needed at this hour but its articulation is slow but gradual. There is a need to reach out to customers and explain why they need to automate their systems and their work to get optimal outputs from their business models. “Alongside as we grow and add more customers we are also looking to scale up our tools and constantly work towards innovating new business tools for customised business needs,” he concedes.

The startup has introduced a few machine learning based insights, which can be game changing as the technology can not only be used for corrective measures but also for preventive steps. Additionally, it will provide valuable insights to the management to improve business metrics.