Before India Celebrates, They Prepare the Automation Network

Key insights:

Readiness means leaving little room for error. It is making sure hundreds of automation systems run reliably across three shifts, under sustained peak loads.

Engineers, operations teams, OEM specialists and frontline teams work together to keep the network running and respond quickly when issues arise.

Learnings from previous festive seasons help the Automation & Infrastructure team identify vulnerabilities and introduce new solutions to handle the surge.

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Automation is one of the key pieces that keeps a large logistics network running smoothly. Behind it is a team that cares for every machine as if it were their own.

So, every year, while most of India is still in the middle of the monsoon, Delhivery’s 30+ member Automation & Infrastructure(A&I) team is already neck-deep in work. Afterall, behind millions of reliable deliveries during the festive season are hundreds of machines, thousands of spare parts and countless kilometres of travel.

Leading the A&I team is Kaushal Agrawal, Senior Director, Automation and Infrastructure Engineering, who joined Delhivery a decade ago as an Associate in Supply Chain Engineering. “We have to maintain 400+ automation systems of different kinds deployed across the country, all while sticking to timelines. The last two months have been very hectic for us. Each and every system has to be tested step by step, besides stress-testing machines,” says Agrawal.

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We have to maintain 400+ automation systems of different kinds, deployed across the country, all while sticking to timelines. The last two months have been very hectic for us. Each and every system has to be tested step by step, besides stress-testing machines.

— Kaushal Agrawal, Senior Director, Automation and Infrastructure Engineering, Delhivery

Agrawal's team is responsible for planning, designing, deploying and maintaining all the automation systems across the network, from sorters and profilers to dimension-weighing systems that help shipments move quickly through facilities. Keeping these systems running smoothly during peak season takes months of planning.

This is barely desk work. Hectic travel has occupied Agrawal’s calendar over the last few weeks. Team members have been travelling non-stop between Bhiwandi, Bangalore, Noida, Surat and many more sites. Some things can't be fixed from a spreadsheet. At each facility, the team brings new automation systems live on time, trains operations staff to use them, runs health checks on existing machines and talks to on-ground teams about the challenges they face, so every facility is ready for the peak surge.

“For me, being peak ready means being confident that the machines will run continuously and tirelessly throughout the festive season, from the first shipment on the first day to the last shipment on the last day, across all three shifts,” says Karandeep Singh, Manager, Transportation at Delhivery. The eloquent 25 year old who hails from Jammu reports to Kaushal Agrawal.

“We work closely with the operations team because they know the volume flow and shipment profile, while we know the strengths and limitations of the machines. Together we plan so that the peak can run smoothly,” says Singh.

Once volume projections arrive, the work begins: calculating whether existing sortation systems can absorb the surge, deciding where additional capacity is needed, identifying facilities that may need expansion or relocation.

As the festive season gets closer, senior team members are assigned to every shift, critical spare parts are stocked locally, and OEM specialists are stationed at major facilities.

The Sorter and the Miscellaneous

To most people, a sorter looks like a single machine. To the engineers responsible for keeping it running, it is an ecosystem of conveyors, diverters, cameras, barcode readers and dimensioning systems. A failure in any one component can slow down the flow of shipments through a facility.

The Delhivery network has different kinds of sortation systems across the network. These include cross-belt sorters, diverter-based sorter, 3D sorters, Arm Sorters and other configurations. Each of them is designed for different throughput requirements and operational needs.

Apart from sorters, facilities also have profiling machines which capture the dimensions and weight of shipments. Instead of manually measuring packages with measuring tapes and weighing scales, shipments simply pass through the profilers and all the required information is captured automatically.

Learning From Previous Peaks

Festive volumes leave very little margin for error. A few minutes of downtime can quickly ripple through a facility processing thousands of shipments an hour.

While the engineers always try their best to ensure that no unplanned issue occurs during peak, however at the end of the day, these are machines. There are electronics, communication networks and many variables that come together.

“The important thing is we do not wait for a problem to tell us what to do next. We categorise every component according to its criticality. Some components can fail without impacting operations significantly, while others are absolutely critical. For those critical parts, we make sure backup components, spare parts, tools and repair mechanisms are readily available,” says Singh.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco"

The important thing is we do not wait for a problem to tell us what to do next. We categorise every component according to its criticality. Some components can fail without impacting operations significantly, while others are absolutely critical. For those critical parts, we make sure backup components, spare parts, tools and repair mechanisms are readily available.

— Karandeep Singh, Manager, Transportation, Delhivery.

If something does go wrong, respond quickly and minimise the impact. A dedicated hotline has been set up to respond to issues in no time.

Every peak season has presented the A&I team an opportunity to learn from previous year’s mistakes and course correct. So, an important agenda is discovering new solutions to make operations more effective as volumes explode every year. 

This year's preparations also include new technology. 

Across three locations in Surat and the Delhi-NCR region, Delhivery is deploying a dual-infeed 3D sortation system designed specifically for the short preparation windows that precede festive peaks. Traditional systems can take several weeks to manufacture and install. These modular systems can be installed and made operational within four to five days.

Each unit can process up to 1,800 shipments per hour while occupying less floor space and consuming significantly less power. The dual-infeed design also provides resilience: if one induction lane encounters a problem, the system can continue operating through the second lane.

Alongside these deployments, recent cross-belt sorter installations have increased automation capacity across the network to handle the surge in volumes. 

Making Machines Dependable

For the A&I team, there is joy in learning. “There is pressure, but there is also a tremendous amount of learning. Planning at this scale, seeing months of preparation come together and then watching the network perform during peak is something we genuinely enjoy,” says Singh. 

Weeks of travel, long shifts and constant troubleshooting can wear down even the most committed people, and many in the team spend festive weeks away from their own families. Agrawal makes it a point to call team members regularly, not just about work, but to check how they are really doing. "If I can make out from their voice that they are down or exhausted, I tell them to take rest, go home, ho jayega. Nobody should have to carry the peak alone," he says.  

Behind every dependable machine is a team that keeps learning, preparing and showing up. They work quietly through the festive season so that when India celebrates, the network never misses a beat.