Our aim is to enable progress of the customer’s manufacturing. To that end, we are focused on providing machines, and ensuring that our manufacturing competitiveness is enhanced, says Praful Shende, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, Bharat Fritz Werner (BFW). In an exclusive interview with Shweta Nanda of MTW, he talks about the company’s thrust on innovation, its strategy to ensure customer satisfaction and environmental conservation efforts. Excerpts:
Q. With IMTEX round the corner, what are your expectations from the mega event being held in Bengaluru from January 24 to 30? What opportunities is BFW seeing by participating at IMTEX 2019?
IMTEX, being the flagship event, is a great platform to network, meet our existing and potential clients and of course showcase our new products. That said, we at BFW first and foremost view it as an opportunity to know and engage with clients from a wide range of segments, understand their requirements and current challenges. We then use these key points to design our future products and services.
At IMTEX 2019, we are set to display a wide array of new and exciting technologies, including advanced multi-process technology, high speed machining technology. We are also showcasing IRIS, our Industry 4.0 platform, and innovative products from our Kalam Center of Innovation.
Q. According to you, which factors are leading to the growth in Indian machine tools industry? Which industries are leading in terms of demand?
Indian manufacturing is growing and will continue to grow. There will be a few glitches here and there in the short term but by and large the outlook looks positive. The government also continues to provide major impetus on manufacturing to enhance its share in GDP to rise to 20% from current 16%. Consequently, machine tools being the mother industry is also growing.
Automotive /auto components sector has been at the forefront of growth and will continue to hold a major share, especially due to shift from BS-IV to BS VI norms by 2020. Commercial vehicle segment will continue to grow on account of thrust on infrastructure. Apart from automotive, infrastructure, railways, MSME job shops, die and mold, and electronics are other significant segments driving the growth.
Q. How well is India positioned in the global machine tools market? Comment on the major challenges for the machine tools industry in India.
As per the latest Gardner Business Media survey, India is within top 10 machine tools consuming nations globally. Although there is a jump in ranking from the previous years, in absolute terms, machine tools market is still a 2 billion dollar industry with equal share of imported and Indian machines. That said, there is a lot of opportunity for the industry to grow and scale.
The challenge for the Indian machine tools industry is two-fold. Firstly, in bringing new technology and scaling up for existing product lines. For instance, new technology, such as multi-processed technology is not readily available. Secondly, the Indian machine tool players are primarily busy meeting the demand of local market, while exports are a bit on backburner. I believe, that for the next level of growth, the focus on exports needs to be enhanced. The industry needs to access markets outside India and establish the ‘Make in India’ brand. We, at BFW are focused on both these issues.
Q. Industry 4.0 is a buzzword that is bringing a shift in the industry. Tell us about BFW’s focus on Industry 4.0. In your observation, how ready are Indian manufacturing companies for these technologies vis-à-vis global peers?
Industry 4.0 is a broad term. In Indian environment, it signifies evolution of an ecosystem where the customer, manufacturing, organization, supply chain—all these elements will have to stay connected to respond to the needs of the shop floor in real time. The top expectation and priority of Indian companies from Industry 4.0 is increasing productivity of their asset. So, in India the focus on Industry 4.0 is essentially asset productivity driven, while the Western world continues to put big thrust on technology.
We at BFW aim to keep things simple, because a large section of Indian manufacturing industry consists of MSMEs. We are focusing on helping our clients increase productivity without making the whole subject complex. IRIS, our platform for Industry 4.0, is a simple solution that enables our clients to know why their machine is not producing to its optimal level and provides them ability to act in real time to see it work. It attempts to make the machine more and more intelligent.
In terms of readiness, Indian companies are not totally ready for Industry 4.0. Tier I large organizations have understood the subject—some of them are putting plans in place and some of them have taken the steps ahead. However, a large part of MSMEs are not yet on board. I believe the real game will change once the MSMEs get ready to join the movement and that is where IRIS will play an enabling role.
Q. In your observation, what are the expectations and demands of Indian buyers? How does BFW facilitate the customers and ensure that their demands are met?
Customers are demanding cost-effective automation, increased production and multi-operations in a single machine. They are expecting fusion of technologies and also customized products.
At BFW, we are co-developing products along with the customers, by understanding their needs and replacing expensive import substitutes. Our thrust is to give them appropriate solutions and our wide product portfolio in terms of turning, milling and special machines allows us to customize the products and meet their unique requirements.
Q. Please update us about your achievements on the R&D side.
We at BFW strongly feel that innovation is critical to growth. To fuel innovation we have a dedicated center named after visionary Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Our Kalam Center of Innovation is committed towards doing meaningful development on the technologies related to the machines of the future. For us, the focus of R&D is not on product development but technology development. We are exploring the usage of alternative material for the making of the machine structures and improving its performance. We are also working on technologies that will ensure stable performance of a machine in tropical environment.
Due to our efforts in R&D and some breakthrough innovations, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) recently recognized BFW as one of the top 25 most innovative companies in India. We are the first one from the Indian machine tools fraternity to be featured in the prestigious group. It is very motivativating for us to grow the culture of innovation within BFW.
Q. Tell us more about your environment friendly measures.
BFW has always been a leader in undertaking environment friendly initiatives. At the product side, we ensure that our products are greener by adhering to the standard norms for new product development. We work towards ensuring that our products consume less electricity and have a low carbon footprint. We are innovating to recycle industrial waste of other industries.
In addition, we follow environment friendly practices at our plants. We do rain water harvesting and horticulture at both our plants in Peenya, Bangalore and Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
We have setup a solar power project that supplies power to the entire facility in Peenya. The 980 kWp solar project generates 15 lakh units of energy which helps us in meeting our power requirements. This plant has helped us offset 1,350 tons of carbon emission every year. Based on this experience, we are exploring similar deployment at our Hosur Plant.
Q. What is your future vision and growth plans for the company?
Our direction, since inception, has been to enable progress of the customer’s manufacturing. We strive to provide optimum technology solutions to our customers be it process solution or product solution. We are not just focused on providing machines, we are focused on making sure that cost-per-piece becomes more effective for the customer once he uses a BFW solution.
Looking ahead, we are planning to grow ahead of market growth by few percentage points and aim to double our manufacturing capacity. We have recently opened a new manufacturing plant at Hosur, which is spread across 35,000 sq. ft. and includes significant numbers of modern machines to enable integration of existing foundry facility with machining capability. The Industry 4.0 compliant factory and all the manufacturing processes here are designed to take it to next level through digitalisation and superior engineering to ensure cost efficiency, increased productivity and shortened manufacturing time. Further, we are exploring our next expansion with a new plant about 18 to 24 months down the line, depending on how the market continues to grow.
