Every online order or supermarket purchase goes through a complex journey—from factories and warehouses to trucks, protected by a simple cardboard box. Although we rarely pay attention to it, without this packaging, goods could be damaged, delayed, or not reach the consumer at all.
As manufacturing and e-commerce sectors expand in India, the demand for reliable, durable, and eco-friendly packaging is growing. Udaan Paper Industries, based in Indore, responded to this demand by transitioning from manual production to automated processes.
Today, the company produces about 5 million recyclable corrugated boxes monthly. This helps businesses receive quality packaging faster while reducing waste and promoting the move away from plastic.
For a long time, India's corrugated packaging industry heavily relied on manual processes, which often resulted in inconsistent quality, slower production, and difficulties meeting growing demand. At the same time, companies were seeking eco-friendly alternatives to plastic.
For Yash Bakliwala, Managing Director and Chairman of Udaan Paper Industries Limited, this represented an opportunity. He noted that India's consumption and production economy was growing rapidly, but the packaging industry remained fragmented and dependent on manual labor. 'We saw a clear gap between the rising demand for high-quality packaging and the industry's ability to supply it consistently. Businesses were also looking for sustainable alternatives to plastic. This inspired us to create automated manufacturing facilities capable of producing recyclable paper packaging quickly, consistently, and in large volumes,' he stated.
Although Udaan Paper Industries has roots dating back to 1986, the new phase of growth began in 2021 after the current group of promoters took over management, focusing on automation and eco-friendly packaging. Their goal was to solve three long-standing industry problems: inconsistent product quality, production delays, and heavy reliance on manual labor. Furthermore, they aimed to make recyclable paper packaging a practical substitute for plastic.
Udaan currently operates two fully automated production sites: one in Pitampur, Madhya Pradesh, and the other in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. These factories supply corrugated packaging to businesses across North and Central India.
Inside the production workshops, the process begins with giant paper rolls. These rolls pass through automated corrugating lines where multiple layers of paper are glued together to create strong corrugated sheets capable of withstanding transportation. The sheets are then cut, printed, folded, and stacked before being transformed into finished boxes of various sizes.
Yash explains that automation makes the entire process faster, more precise, and highly stable. Unlike traditional production, where much depends on manual handling, automation allows every box to be produced to a uniform quality standard, minimizing material consumption and increasing efficiency. 'Our goal is to provide packaging that offers consistent quality, is produced faster, and is delivered to customers on time,' he emphasized. 'Automation helps us improve production planning, reduce material waste, and support the transition from plastic to recyclable paper packaging.'
Despite having advanced equipment, people remain a key element of the operation. Quality control, machine monitoring, maintenance, and shipment planning are handled by Udaan teams. Yash notes: 'Technology increases efficiency, but it is skilled employees who ensure quality and reliability.'
The company employs around 100 people across its two plants. As automation expands, many employees have transitioned from heavy physical manual labor to more specialized technical roles. 'Every new machine requires trained operators. We view automation as an opportunity to upskill our employees, not replace them,' adds Yash.
The monthly output of 5 million boxes makes this packaging an integral part of India's supply chain. The installed capacity of the two automated facilities is 30,000 tons per year. The packaging is used in sectors such as FMCG, food processing, dairy, beverages, textiles, and consumer goods, and the company continues to expand into pharmaceuticals and e-commerce.
Technology also plays a role beyond production. GPS-equipped vehicles, optimized route planning, and improved production scheduling ensure timely delivery of packaging, allowing client production lines to operate without interruption. 'Our role doesn't end when the box leaves the factory,' says Yash. 'By strengthening both production and logistics, we help clients improve inventory movement, reduce order fulfillment times, and build more efficient supply chains.'
With two automated factories operating at full capacity, Udaan is already planning its next stage of growth. The company intends to become a comprehensive provider of sustainable packaging solutions, expanding into related paper products, including paper bags. This will allow businesses to source a wider range of eco-friendly packaging from a single partner.
In addition to manufacturing, Udaan plans to strengthen its capabilities in technology-driven logistics and reverse logistics to help clients optimize inventory movement and create more efficient supply chains. The company is also considering entering international markets, including the USA, UK, North America, Latin America, and Australia, where the demand for environmentally friendly paper packaging is growing.
Yash is convinced that automated production, technology-based logistics, and sustainable packaging will help Indian enterprises compete globally. 'As India's manufacturing, e-commerce, FMCG, and organized retail sectors continue to grow, automation will become essential. Future packaging companies will compete not only on price but also on quality, speed, stability, sustainability, and supply chain reliability. Automation will help Indian manufacturers compete globally. Our vision is to build one of India's most reliable automated packaging companies.'
In India, there is a problem of disappearing ancient crafts that have developed over centuries. This happens unnoticed: masters are aging, younger generations are moving away from traditional occupations, and factory equivalents are displacing manual labor.
The Savant Bhosale royal family from Savantwadi in Maharashtra noticed that the art of Gandhiji—painted circular playing cards once popular among Mughal emperors—was almost extinct by the 20th century. Members of this family decided to study the craft themselves, learning from an 80-year-old master. Now their palace hall serves as a studio, the craft has received a GI tag, is supported by 20 active artisans, and its art is used on the first round postcards of India Post.
Before the early 2000s, Uguv woven carpets made from reeds and rice straw were common in all Kashmiri homes. However, the appearance of factory substitutes led the artisans to abandon their looms, and the craft withered. After 2020, Ghulam Hassan from Srinagar, who learned the craft in childhood, began its revival with his daughter Tanzila. Their home has become a training center, enabling more than 20 women to earn between 10,000 and 12,000 rupees per month from home.
Shambhavi Pande, after leaving her career as an HR manager overseeing teams of 3000 people, questioned why traditional folk art rarely reached people's homes. Her brand Folkstroke in Raipur collaborates with 200 artisans from seven states, including Gond artists, Tolu Bommalata masters, and Kalamkari craftsmen. Over six years, the income of the artisans has increased by 30 percent. Gond artist Santu Tekam noted that during the pandemic, when he had no work, he was helped by 'Didi'.
In 2021, Sushmita Kaneri met a Nirmal painting master in Telangana who planned to advise his son to find a regular job. Despite having an engineering degree and job offers, she refused them. By 2023, she founded Gullakaari, which works to revive 13 endangered crafts such as Warli, Kavad historical story boxes, Tolu Bommalata leather puppet animation, and others. The platform is connected to over 1000 artisans, and the cumulative income over two years reached 50 lakh rupees.
When discussing artificial intelligence in logistics, people often picture obvious elements: robots in warehouses, routing algorithms, or the rare use of drones. While this is not incorrect, such a view focuses on the wrong level of change.
Automating physical labor primarily leads to cost reduction, but today, the decisive factor for success is not cost. The change that will reshape the logistics landscape in India is less visible; it lies in how decisions are made. What used to be a company's competitive advantage—having trucks, warehouses, and postal code coverage—is being replaced by something much harder to copy: what the company has learned through its operational activities.
Artificial intelligence is already being actively implemented in Indian logistics. According to the market assessment 'India AI in Logistics' by the analytical firm Markets and Data, the AI in logistics market is expected to grow from $756 million in fiscal year 2024 to $6.8 billion by fiscal year 2032. Meanwhile, NASSCOM estimates the level of AI adoption in Indian enterprises at 2.45 out of 4.
Most people stop at these figures, seeing only increased efficiency—approximately a 15% reduction in logistics costs and up to a 50% increase in forecasting (Markets and Data). However, this is only a superficial aspect. Efficiency is the first-year dividend. The advantage that expands over time only manifests if the company is built with this in mind, and most companies are not.
Over the last decade, logistics software provided visibility—dashboards showing cargo location and the profitability of a specific route. The publicly listed company Delhivery built a significant part of its scale precisely on this visibility infrastructure. Visibility remains important, but it is no longer what distinguishes leaders. The main question now is whether your mechanism can act autonomously based on the data received. Knowing that a warehouse might run out in two days is useful; but a system that has already moved the goods before you receive the notification is an entirely different level.
This transition from simply reporting a problem to resolving it marks a shift from reporting to decision making, and all other processes develop below this level. Consider the example of a solar company aiming to increase daily installations from 12 to 50. The obvious answer is to hire more workers. However, the real bottleneck is often related to judgment: one operations manager keeps track of installer schedules, panel inventory, and site readiness in their head, with most information processed over the phone. This process depends on genius, and geniuses have limits; they reach their limit around 20 installations per day, and this limit can collapse when the manager receives a better offer.
Implementing a system that consistently organizes installations based on current inventory and personnel availability allows achieving the 50 target without the need for such rapid hiring. What has been acquired is not just a good quarter, but a new way of working that persists as metrics grow. This is the true meaning of the phrase 'systems over heroes'—a concept that is duller but more valuable than it seems.
This is where the advantage accumulates, which is often underestimated. Every time the system works, errors, especially those that occur, serve as the basis for the next decision. A platform that has processed millions of such cases for multiple brands and cities possesses not just a large volume of data; it has accumulated operational experience that cannot be bought, but can only be gained through practice. This is cumulative intelligence, and this is why the category is ranked by learning speed, not by who has raised the most capital.
The greatest benefit is enjoyed by brands that have long been ignored by the market. Companies with annual revenues between 20 and 500 crore rupees are too large to manage logistics with spreadsheets and phone calls, but too small for the bespoke approach that Flipkart receives. AI makes serving the mid-segment economically viable, allowing a brand in Jaipur to send goods to Siliguri with a level of orchestration previously reserved for metropolises. Experts believe that a significant part of India's export and job growth will depend on this.
If you manage such a business, stop measuring yourself by the volume of the controlled network. Instead, ask yourself: does your system fix problems or just report them? Will your advantage survive after the best employee quits on Friday? Does every order make the next decision more accurate, or does it just add to a history from which you extract nothing? If your answer is yes to all these questions, you are achieving a cumulative effect. If not, you are simply automating routine tasks and calling it transformation.
There is an important caveat: this is not universally applicable. In the segment of bulk commodity transportation, where the game is determined by cost per kilometer and asset density, learning speed is insignificant, and the old asset-based barrier remains valid. The argument applies to complex tasks: many SKUs, multi-node execution for fast-growing brands, which aligns with the direction of India's consumer economy development.
Achieving the $5 trillion economy constantly discussed for 2030 is impossible without a substantial improvement in trade turnover. The companies that lead this will not just automate warehouses—that will become commonplace. They will automate a more complex task—judgment, which was previously in the heads of several people, turning improvised supply chains into operations that make decisions and continuously improve themselves. It is this, not robots, that is rewriting logistics with AI.
