Formed in 2012, Sri Lakshmi Fire Controls is one of the leading providers of world-class fire protection systems to a wide range of industries, including textiles. The company has collaborated with German Company GreCon, who are in this field for more than 100 years.
AS Venkatkrishna, Chief Executive Officer of Sri Lakshmi Fire Controls, speaks on the various products offered by the company for the Indian market.
What are the main industry segments that your company caters to? How has the company performed in FY2018-19?
We supply online and offline automatic fire protection systems to a wide range of industries including textile, food, wood, paper, oil, coal and logistics. The company’s product requirements is also much higher – almost all in hot air exhaust pipeline applications, waste collection system filters, etc. irrespective of industrial segments. Also, we supply spark detectors to detect spark/fire among the production material, which moves on conveyor belts.
FY 2018-19 was a very good year in terms of performance. We have achieved 70 per increase in sales volume as compared to the last financial year. We would like to thank at this juncture our technological partner GreCon, Germany for their excellent support for their excellent support, all our customers for keeping trust on us and giving repeated orders and all our suppliers/all the people who are associated with us.
What are your company’s new products and innovations?
As a new product, we only supply high-sensitive special type day light spark detectors, which detects real spark/fire even in daylight/ambient light conditions. Other generic detectors will detect spark only in dark areas. This product has universal application irrespective of industries where sunlight or other external light is present. Hence, no false alarm.
We supply earlier response automatic smoke detection system, which works on air sampling method (aspiration type) designed with LOGICSENS fire pattern recognition for godowns, where high value fire sensitive materials are stored. This is 1,000 times more sensitive than generic smoke detectors and there will be no false alarm.
We also supply online metal detector to detect metals present in the moving material inside the pneumatic conveying pipe. It moves at maximum speed of 30 m/sec. Metal will be removed immediately. What is your experience in terms of change/customer expectation in the present market and growth in the manufacturing sector with the present Government?
In my experience, in the manufacturing sector, technology advancement has improved a lot. Also, quality awareness has also increased. Also, customer’s expectation on their usage/application aspects increased like anything. For example, they need SMS provision on fire alert system to their concerned people mobile numbers when any fire incident/detection happened. It gives value addition to our product and it also drives us for more innovations, improvements and much awareness in precise manner in all aspects.
As a new product, we only supply high-sensitive special type day light spark detectors, which detects real spark/fire even in daylight/ambient light conditions.
FY 2018-19 was a very good year in terms of performance. We have achieved 70 per increase in sales volume as compared to the last financial year.
Meanwhile, the production cost is increasing and it is not possible to match with the product price increase. Hence, profit margin decreases gradually. To balance this, we have to manufacture or sell in high volume. To achieve this, customer satisfaction is more important.
The “Make in India†initiative was announced by the Government to support the manufacturing sector. But, it still seems that they are concentrating on service sector than manufacturing. Real “Make in India†should happen. More supportive initiations and implementations have to be made in a rapid manner.
Also, the Government should take further more steps to avoid more fluctuation in the Indian currency appreciation. The present policy on fuel prices should be reviewed. Also, the review of duties on imported items should be done.
What medium are you currently using for marketing your products/services?
We are giving periodical advertisements in industrial magazines. We are also participating in expos, trade fairs and catalogue shows. As usual, we are aggressively doing direct marketing. Especially in our case, references also helps us a lot because of our product quality and excellent service. Nowadays, we have started giving advertisements in digital and social media also, and are now working on creating separate mobile app for service.