The transportation of chemicals not only needs to be seamless but also requires special care in its handling, carriage as well as storage in order to prevent any safety hazards such as contamination and spoilage.

In this context, the leading industry experts at the first edition of “ChemConnect 2022”, a logistics and supply chain event, organized by Indian Chemical News (ICN) on September 21, 2022 at The Lalit, Mumbai, discussed current challenges and scope for improvement of transportation involving hazardous chemical. The session titled ‘Transportation of Hazardous Chemicals’ that unraveled the complexities as well as emerging opportunities in logistics of hazardous chemicals, was moderated by Shanker K. Kuppuswamy, CEO, Nicer Globe – a vertical of Indian Chemical Council.

 “We have a dedicated fleet of more than 400 vehicles which manage materials distribution and a dedicated fleet of more than 350 ISO tank containers with which we export materials. We bring those empty tanks back home because we do not want to run the risk of cleaning these somewhere else, thereby increasing the hazards. So we managed the reverse logistics ourselves and so on. These are things that we have been doing and at the same time working with the community to improve incrementally each year,” said Mitesh Gangar, General Manager - Business & Supply Chain Management, Aarti Industries.

 “Among the initiatives that we have done over the last 12 to 18 months, also include focusing a lot more on the entire data generation for chemical stability. So for certain basic chemicals, data would generally be available elsewhere in literature but not for the products that we are manufacturing and sometimes also for downstream customers. For the specialty actives not enough data is available in the public domain. Hence, we have invested in all of this ourselves to do both process stability and generate data for the process as well as for the storage. We would want to open this up to any partner in the industry. Whether it’s a supplier or customer or anybody else who wants to get data for their products and how these interact with materials of packaging. Our scientists are available at Navi Mumbai R& D lab to help them out. Similarly, we have also invested in our own packaging lab and have started doing regular training and updates on the entire IMDG and IATA guidelines. It ensures that our teams are updated and a lot of ideas and solutions come from the ground level,” added Gangar.

 “Challenges are only with compliance and safety. Solutions provided by digital technologies are still at the fringes as the chemical industry is fragmented a lot. On one side it has the biggies like Reliance and on the other side more than 40% are traders. Certification compliance in practicality and reality are two different aspects,” said Captain Ram Iyer, India Representative, Haropa Port.  

“Sensitizing the entire supply chain is important and it should begin right at the warehouses and manufacturing. It can change only through the change in the attitude of the manufacturers and traders. Sensitization of the transporter of hazardous chemicals, drivers, sharing of real MSDS of the product, emergency procedures about the small or major spillage. This is where the responsibility comes. The question is how do we implement the global practices as the knowledge already exists. We have a port committee and a digital system and likewise the chemical industry has to have an add on. Most of the talk is focused on PCPIRs but nobody is talking about the chemical clusters being self-complementary. The commitment of the chemical industry as a whole on the implementation. Governments can be called facilitators or enablers but they are regulators. The onus is on the chemical industry,” added Iyer.

“The business worth around 200 billion is distributed among 5-6 largest manufacturers of chemicals. We have to manage this kind of a volume where we have more than 70,000 products in nature including the B2B and B2C specialty, basic chemicals, and agrochemicals. But we don’t have any specialized, tailor made resources available at this point of time to handle such a great complexity.  On the other hand, the FMCG and many other industries are ahead of this industry. About 20%-25% of accidents occur due to breakdown of the vehicles and 30-35% due to human errors. Talking about GPS is fine but the bigger question is the availability of drivers as they change jobs in a few months. The problem is we have to see the entire ecosystem as a whole rather than seeing it in silos,” said Vineet Kumar, Head – Supply Chain Excellence, DFPCL.

“At this point of time the supply chain is not a cost centre but a business enabler. My operations should be out at optimum cost and there lies the complexity because raw materials are similar, providers are similar, raw material costs are similar, and my buying power and sale prices are also fixed as per my ranking into the business. Because one is not able to compromise on raw material prices, one doesn’t have space to increase sales prices. Therefore, there is a need to build efficiency within the system through digitization as well as linking demand and supply chain. For example, if I am planning to sell within next six months, the entire team should start working from that point on the basis of data. This needs complete digitization and number of permutation, combination, and removal of error prone noises. Only then you can use the data for decision-making. It will reduce your dependence on the people and the entire system starts working in a sustainable way,” added Kumar.

“We have about 70 plus companies on our list and we track about 10,000 plus trucks on a daily basis with 1,50,000 drivers as a database. During the pandemic, transportation of the chemical industry was stuck and we did not know what to do with that. To address the same, we used digital platforms during the post pandemic period very effectively. When the vehicles reach their destination, we are able to provide the information in advance to the companies. We trained the drivers because it helped in creating a seamless process. We shared the telephone number and transport details so that things can move non stop. So at our end, there is already a platform which has been operating and we have been doing it for a while now,” commented Shanker K. Kuppuswamy, CEO, Nicer Globe - a vertical of Indian Chemical Council.

 “India has made giant strides in various domains but we lag behind in road safety. While we talk about the training of drivers and vehicle features getting better, aerodynamics, and other aspects, the fact is that accidents are still happening. Addressing the issue requires not just training but both training and monitoring of the human resources through artificial intelligence devices. There is a psychological aspect to it as we often need somebody to watch over us while we are doing our job. For example, if a driver is on the wheels and AI catches him talking over the phone, it will alert his manager in the backend who will message him to drop the call immediately. It happens in a matter of few seconds and thus quickly helps in safeguarding the material worth crores,” says Shivkumar Balasubramanian, Director - India Sales, Netradyne Technology India. 

The conference themed as ‘Creating a Robust Ecosystem’ lined up the country’s top industry captains for the most comprehensive dialogue on the various key topics. The event was supported by platinum partner Netradyne; gold partners - Carbanio, Moglix, and DriveBuddy AI; regulatory knowledge partner - GPC; tech partner, Ezbiz Technologies; and media partner Indian Pharma Post.