Associate Vice President – Sales & Marketing,
Schmersal India
Q. Could you expatiate about your Company and its domestic and global business activities?
Schmersal group headquartered in Germany is a world leader in providing Machinery Safety solutions for any Industry since its inception in 1945. We have expertise in mainly three fields: Safety, Automation and Lifts related products and solution. In India we started manufacturing operations in the year 2013 and since then we have been manufacturing several such components and offering many services as per the Indian Industry demand.
Q. In your opinion what is the state of SAFETY AWARENESS in manufacturing industry related to machines in India and what is the trend you see in the space?
Safety awareness among the machine manufacturing segment in India is still at a very nascent stage. However, the trend seen in the last few years is a positive one. Many a manufacturers who did not show any interest in providing a safety feature on their machines in the past, have now actually standardized on the same in their new machines. People are slowly realizing that any machine without safety is an incomplete machine.
Q. What are the various safety related products and services that you offer?
The Schmersal group has a very large portfolio of products ranging from a small limit switch with safety function to non-contact RFID based sensors, locking type solenoid door interlocks to safety light curtains, tactile safety devices to safety controllers / PLC. In services we offer, Training, Risk Assessment, Sistema Validation, Stop time measurement and
Turn Key solution including guarding and safety devices installation and integration to the existing control system to make the machine safe.
Q. What is the advantage of SCHMERSAL products vis-s-vis the competition?
The first and foremost advantage is global, world class products and solutions at Indian price. Apart from this since we have local manufacturing, we can support on application based products and solutions faster than any competitors. Then we have highly trained and qualified sales force who can give instant solution directly at the door steps of various customers.
Q. What are the challenges that you are currently facing in India?
The biggest challenge we face in India is the regulation part of the safety requirements as per the Indian Factory Act. Also, the awareness level is not up to mark both for machine manufacturers and machine users. This leads to usage of non-safe solutions in machines, thus making the machines hazardous to use. Also, there needs to be initiative from the government to have CE mark, or similar kind of mark exclusively and mandatory for India for machines manufactured and used in India.
Q. What kind of plans and expectations do you have for near future?
In recent past, Schmersal India has already developed and in the process of developing many more safety products locally exclusively for India, keeping in mind the Indian environment and the mindset of Indian customer. Apart from this, we already have three Certified Functional Safety Engineers and further planning to have few more in the team to carry out more Training Risk Assessments as per global standards.