In this digitalization era, there have been many changes in people's shopping patterns. People who used to shop directly at stores began to switch to online shopping. Online transactions from year to year continue to increase, especially this year. With this pandemic, more and more people are switching to online shopping. This has made the need for warehousing and logistics services in Indonesia increased. This is an opportunity as well as a challenge for the logistics sector to be able to make logistics in Indonesia more efficient both in terms of price and time.

Currently, there are several things that make warehousing in Indonesia less efficient. Some of them are the cost of renting a warehouse which is still expensive and the use of the warehouse is not optimal. Currently, warehouse rentals are usually annual rent base and the capacity used tends to be only 10%-20% of the total building capacity. In overcoming the increasing demand and inefficiency of warehousing, there are innovations made and one of them is smart warehousing.

Smart warehousing is an ecosystem using technology that functions to support logistics processes from receiving, identifying, sorting, and managing goods automatically. Smart warehouse systems can save up to 70% space cost compared to traditional warehouses and can also reduce labor costs in the warehousing segment. With smart warehousing, the risks in logistics operations such as shipping errors or other human errors in the warehouse will be lower. In addition, with this smart warehouse system, the delivery time of goods will be faster. According to AlixPartners, the expected average delivery time will increase from 5.5 days to 4.5 days in 2021, which means goods will reach consumers faster. In terms of manpower, the existence of this smart warehousing system makes the quality of human resources increase because the automation system requires skilled workers. This smart warehousing system will continue to improve with a projected growth of 14% or around 30 billion USD in 2026 coupled with the acceleration of digitalization and an increase in the e-commerce sector, making an investment in smart warehousing a good and promising prospect.

Smart warehousing certainly requires a strategic location to facilitate the delivery of goods and also adequate facilities. Karawang New Industry City industrial area, which is located in West Karawang with access to the West Karawang toll exit 2 km 47 and is only 10 minutes from the Jakarta-Bandung Fast Train Karawang station, will become a potential smart warehousing center and has become the choice of several well-known industry players as their business location.

Reference: JJL, Kompas.com, Kontan.co.id, Dailysocial.id