Technology innovation is where Parvinder Singh, Managing Director, Hans Infomatic, sees the most immediate gains. ULD planning, he explains, has traditionally depended on an experienced individual manually visualising how packages fit within a container’s internal volume, a slow process prone to inefficiency.
Automation removes friction humans never needed
Automating ULD Planning
Technology innovation is where Parvinder Singh, Managing Director, Hans Infomatic, sees the most immediate gains. ULD planning, he explains, has traditionally depended on an experienced individual manually visualising how packages fit within a container’s internal volume, a slow process prone to inefficiency. Automation and AI-assisted planning now take package size and count as inputs and generate a loading plan within minutes, converting what used to be trial and error into a genuine pre-load advisory system.
The Paper That Refuses to Disappear
Paperless cargo acceptance, Singh argues, is closer to reality than commonly assumed but not fully there. Government agencies have done substantial work removing paper from customs clearance and IATA transport documentation, yet security agencies still often require a physical stamp confirming that screening has taken place. These, he says, are the last bastions of resistance standing between the industry and a genuinely smooth flow. High-powered CT x-ray machines, he suggests, could flag consignments reliably enough to remove this remaining friction and let the conveyor belt move at real speed rather than pausing for manual verification.
OCR and the Rise of Data Morph
In hub sorting, OCR technology, what Singh refers to as data morph, digitises information from paper trails and forwards it automatically to the relevant terminals and agencies, keeping queues properly maintained, with alarms tied to service level agreements around dwell time flagging anything that falls outside acceptable limits so remedial action can follow quickly.
Fewer People Moving, Fewer Emissions
He connects this directly to sustainability commitments: removing paper reduces the physical movement of people to terminals, and at Delhi Airport, he says, eliminating unnecessary personnel movement has cut gate passes by around five thousand, meaning five thousand fewer people travelling to and from the terminal altogether, none of them needing a vehicle to do so, with the associated reduction in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions that follows.
