Written by Ranadeb Ray on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)
From the earlier times till today, logistics has become a vital part in the overall work process and because of the members involved in the Logistics department, all the work gets carried out smoothly.
In the beginning from 1950s onwards, there was a huge amount of work force available in this sector and due to India’s massive population, the different industries could expand their own respective businesses with the expansion of the Logistics department. Especially in the Manufacturing processes and in other factories, we could see many people working together on a manual basis and getting the work completed smoothly.
In my earlier organisation, I learned the entire work cycle by interacting with the different team members in the Logistics department. Each individual was assigned a particular task in getting the total work done and each one of them was doing their own part in this overall process. From the Logistics Manager to the Clerk, there were clear instructions and a hierarchy followed by each team member and every morning the entire Logistics department would assemble in the Meeting room and discuss the entire day`s schedule. There was a clear understanding between each team member and by the end of the day; some of these members would not even enter the office again. Another thing which I have observed is that there was no system in place to monitor each team members work done and still, the entire work was completed very smoothly. All the team members had respect for each other, and the senior management trusted them and gave them full freedom in completing the task for the organisation.
Now, in the present day and age, technology is advancing in a rapid state and most of the companies are accepting the new technologies in completing the said work and we are moving from large work forces to including machines in our everyday lives and, by including softwares in our everyday work.
At present, most of the organisations have many systems in place where each member logs in daily and completes the work.
From what I have observed, the work done in the Logistics department includes many team members who are constantly moving around from one place to another. It is not an office sitting job; majority of the team members are on the move throughout the day. Only the Logistics Manger is sitting in the office and updating the team`s daily movements to the senior management. But, if there are meetings to be attended in a client`s office, even the Logistics Manager would be on the move and attend the meetings and find out about the state of the ongoing project work.
In the future going forward 10 years from now, I can clearly see the reduction of the total work force and a huge dependence on the softwares to complete the work and also, the inclusion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in doing the same work.
Although, improvement should always be welcome and the country should move forward and bring out better initiatives in completing any work, at some stage, we would miss the interaction and the hustle-bustle between the different colleagues in a particular department.
