Our LogisticsTech program is underway, and we recently asked our startups what they see when it comes to holiday shipping, supply chains, and technology. This year they face the usual holiday rush, but, as we have seen, the pandemic put extra strain on systems.
Valerie Lee from MaCh eX (https://machex.com.sg/), an IoT platform company that offers solutions for freight logistics and smart cities shared their team’s experience so far this holiday season.
“In this pandemic, especially the Chinese-speaking market in Singapore has contributed to a surge in online purchase via direct China e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Alibaba. Our localized e-marketplace has also experienced a high sales volume surge, adding pressure on the logistics sector to deliver within the shortest possible timeframe. However, this also means a new opportunity to tap on for the sector.
The social distancing requirement to prevent a second wave has also posed a huge challenge to the order fulfillment team on tasks that require multiple functions to work in unison. To cite an example, the packing and delivering process may depend more on automation to adhere to the stringent social distance rules. Hence, this has forced many companies to embrace automation and IoT technology.”
Not only are companies dealing with holiday logistics issues, but they are also going into an uncertain 2021. The pandemic continues, but vaccines have been released. World economies will open up at some point and definitely at different rates.
Valerie explained how MaCh eX is preparing to capitalize on opportunities when the economy opens up in 2021.
“With our smart cargo management, we would like to extend the feature, not limited to only containers, but to assist in the warehousing and inventory management to meet the new supply chain demand. With the government initiatives in automation and IoT during this pandemic, we hope to roll out our IoT platform to assist others by creating customized IoT systems in the shortest possible timeframe during this crunch time.”