Schmersal India – Protection for Man and Machine
Published on : Tuesday 08-11-2022
Schmersal specialises in safety solutions for industrial plants and machinery.
Schmersal India Pvt Ltd, the company that is known for manufacturing products for safety at the workplace, held a media meeting at its Pune office in mid-October 2022. The occasion was the visit of Michael Ambros, Managing Director, K A Schmersal GmbH & Co KG to India. Also present on the occasion were Sagar Bhosale, Managing Director, and Ramji Singh, Vice President, Schmersal India Pvt Ltd.
Schmersal India, a 100% subsidiary of the 77-year old German group, had come to India in 2007 by launching its sales operations. In 2013, the company established its manufacturing operations with a state-of-the-art facility at Ranjangaon, near Pune, supported by an R&D centre. In early 2020, Schmersal opened a new Export Oriented Unit at the same site to promote export activities, taking advantage of the progressive policies of the Government of India that incentivised exports from the country. Schmersal India continues to grow in India with more ambitious plans for the future. Earlier this year, the German company also launched a new subsidiary, Schmersal Global Competence Centre Pvt Ltd (SGCC) to support IT and Engineering projects of The Schmersal Group globally. The IT services consist of SAP, Infrastructure, Microsoft Technologies, and Custom Application Development. The Engineering Centre takes care of firmware, embedded and IIoT technologies to propel the Schmersal Group into a Digital age.
Sagar Bhosale traced the progress Schmersal has made in India since the time the initial manufacturing facility was set up, the planning for which had begun much earlier during 2009-10 when there was a global recession, with strong support from the parent company. “India has a lot of subsidiaries of German companies operating in the country successfully and the management of Schmersal has a much broader vision about India. The board was clear that the group had to invest in India even as the initial sales were limited, had to build up capacity, localise production, so the support was always there, more than what we expected. We are transferring a lot of lines from Germany to India, and today have achieved a milestone that any electro-mechanical product line can be brought from Germany to India. Now we are expecting that we will get the higher end lines, the technologies for electronics, because that’s how things are moving, and which call for bigger investments. That is the next phase where we need help from Germany,” he explained.
As a company specialising in safety solutions for industrial plants and machinery, Schmersal serves various industry segments, be it machine tools, heavy industry, food & beverages, packaging, elevators, etc. In response to a question on what are the leading market segments, Sagar cited the ‘protection for man and machine’ motto of Schmersal and said the company is not focussed or dependent on any one segment and hence is immune from any market related demand fluctuations. The maximum business we have in any sector is not more than 12% of our sales. Our main business sectors where we are strong are elevators, food & beverages, heavy industries like steel and cement, and now increasingly, automotive and robotics, which are fast growing. In recent months our biggest area of growth has been ecommerce where they need a lot of safety in operations.
Addressing a question about the possibilities of retrofitting legacy machines with safety solutions, Sagar Bhosale explained the issues are the deciding factors in such cases. “In India we have a lot of old machines and these are not discarded easily as these continue to remain in operation after repairs and refurbishments. So the first thing we do when we get a request for retrofitting safety solutions is conduct a risk analysis of the process. Sometimes the machine is too old and the cost of making it safe may not be economically viable – it is better in such cases to buy a new machine,” said Sagar. The risk analysis, he explained, is done by the Tecnicum Division of Schmersal which provides four types of services: Training, Engineering, Technical and Integration. The Technical Services experts do the risk analysis for the viability of retrofitting and to what extent or level – there are different safety levels – it will be successful and the cost benefit equation, which ultimately determines whether the client wants the solution.
Speaking about the Sales & Service, more specifically after sales service, Sagar Bhosale emphasised that Schmersal service starts even before the sale happens. “In India safety awareness is low, even among machine manufacturers. So to those customers who ask for safety solutions we start by providing training about safety and the need for it, helping them design the safety systems, before they buy it. Once the products are installed, they have to be used in a particular way.” With each safety product there is of course a manual that explains this, but the real question is how many people actually read the manual? “Most customers believe in learning by using, which is not the right way with safety products. So we actually train them in the use of our safety products, and hand hold them through the process initially, especially when it comes to high end products like the controllers and safety PLCs. Another thing is our service network with engineers based in strategic locations even in Tier 2 & 3 cities where we support our customers till the time they are comfortable about the actual use, and they usually are confident after a couple of practical demonstrations,” he concluded.
(A detailed interview with Michael Ambros is published in the following pages.)