Our products are Industry 4.0 ready: Muthusekkar

A100-per cent subsidiary of Getriebebau Nord, NORD Drivesystems Pvt Ltd opened a world-class 13,300 m² factory in Pune in 2008, after it established a sales branch in 2005. The company?s Pune plant has enabled it to provide quicker and comprehensive sales and customer service in India and all over the subcontinent.

?We are upgrading our products to a higher efficiency one as IE-2, IE-3, IE-4 and our decentralised drives will be value for money, space saving and support environment, as it will provide the best output and recover the total cost of ownership in the long run. We also strongly believe automation is going to be the order of the day. We also strongly believe automation is going to be the order of the day,? says PL Muthusekkar, Managing Director, NORD Drivesystems Pvt Ltd, during an interaction with the ITJ Editor via email about future strategies to penetrate the drive systems market.

Excerpts…

When was the Pune facility of Nord Drivesystems established? Trace its growth over the time.

Indeed, NORD Drivesystems Pvt Ltd opened a 13,300 m² factory in Pune in 2008, after we had established a sales branch in 2005. Our Pune plant has enabled us to provide quicker and more comprehensive sales and customer service in India and all over the subcontinent. NORD customers in India can rely on our strong team of local specialists who serve all states and territories; giving support from early planning stages all the way through to delivery, assembly, and regular maintenance operations. Having our own production facility here also gives us total control over the top quality of the parts and systems customers have come to expect from us.

Nord India has reached a production capacity of more than 24,000 units per year and includes mechanical, electrical and electronic products in drive systems.

While the client spread here has touched almost every industry such as steel and metals, infrastructure, cement, textile, packaging, airports, pharmaceutical, chemical, pumps, effluent treatment, material handling, robotics, cranes, automobile, dairy, beverage, packaged food, agriculture, and many more.

What stage of preparedness the Pune facility has at present in supplying drives and other systems to the Indian customers? Some details of infrastructure established.

The production facility in Pune is highly equipped for motor supply ? ranging from frame size 63 to 160. While the preparedness for supplying gear boxes the case size varies from 0 to 9 or 10 sizes as per need. In the electrical drives segment, there are two sections ? the motor mounted variable frequency drives start at 0.25 kw and extend to 22 kw, while the cabinet range varies from 0.25 kw to 160 kw. Our Service sections are set up for increasing product life. We also have in house testing facilities for each product. Additionally we have set up an environment-friendly paint shop. About 90 per cent of global NORD products can be sold and serviced in India.

Have any drive systems been supplied to the Indian textile industry? Which are the segments targeted? What is the experience and scope envisaged?

Textile has been one of our focus segments always, though our products are working for various applications in processing equipment/machines in textile industry. We are supplying our systems to various brands in the industry like Truetzschler, Texfab, Jupiter, Oerlikon, Batliboi, Luwa India, LMW, ColourTex, etc.

We are furnishing applications for cloth drying, texturing, dyeing and various processing operations, etc.

Our experience with the textile industry has been ever growing. Human basic needs are ?food, shelter and clothing? and hence textile is always a growing market. Though there were slight ups and downs in the past, we always consider this as an evergreen and growing industry. Fortunately India is very strong in the textile segment.

What are the latest drives systems offered in India? What is their USPs?

NORD application takes advantage of a VFD Control to vary the speed of the motor during your process to save energy and reduce machine stress. NORD offers customised motors to meet special requirements and provide cost-effective solutions to our customers. NORD high-efficiency gearbox combined with premium efficiency motors IE2 & IE3 form highly efficient motors which save up to 40 per cent power. NORD fulfils all of the current efficiency regulations and supplies a wide range of energy saving motors for the international market, with which operating costs can be considerably reduced.

NORD heavy-duty, one-piece housings are precisely machined for this purpose. They are sturdy in terms of design and can take more loads. The casings also have less mechanical components that reduce the chances of failures of the device.

Today customers expect highly energy efficient products with a complete focus on total cost of ownership. In addition to reduced energy consumption, all energy efficient NORD motors feature a very durable, low maintenance design. With power saving the maintenance costs are reduced by almost 40 per cent and 300 per cent in terms of oil change Intervals, this leads to a lower total cost of ownership in the long run.

NORD develops its own motors and supplies them to all the major markets throughout the world. Our motors are specially designed to adapt with gear units; Our own developments ensure a high level of independence from external suppliers and therefore provide our customers with the key advantage of short and highly dependable delivery times. NORD motors are optimally matched to gear units and frequency inverters from our own production and are available with an unusually wide range of options.

Please share with us some information about the parent company, its major presence in China and its other subsidiaries.

Getriebebau NORD is one of the world?s leading manufacturers of drive technology ? for mechanical and electronic solutions. NORD was founded in 1965 and now has net sales of approximately 560 million Euro.

In 2005, NORD officially established its business presence in the Chinese market, establishing modern assembly and production bases in Suzhou, Tianjin, and other cities successively.

Nord (China) Power Transmission Co Ltd was incorporated in the Suzhou Industrial Park in 2004. Housing a gear units assembly plant and a motor production plant. Located in Tianjin Wuqing Development Zone, Nord (Tianjin) Power Transmission Co Ltd also operates a gear units assembly plant. NORD also operates a high precision motor laboratory and a modern frequency inverter facility in China.

NORD gear is represented in over 60 countries in the world. With more than 3,400 employees to ensure minimum short lead times and fast customer service, you can expect to receive your drive and have your questions answered regardless of your geographic location.

Can you please throw some light on the Nord Drivesystem?s custom-made, special application of drives?

NORD R&D team are continuous in process of providing new customised and suitable gear box and units to the customer such as:

Our new decentralised drives units with integrated PLC can control both simple and complex applications directly. This reduces the load on the higher level system control unit and enables modular system designs and autonomous production units. The inverter PLC evaluates the application data and transfers it directly to a sequence control unit as required. In addition, it provides the relevant data to the control level and other networked components in real time.

NORD Helical-Bevel reducers and gear motors are offered in three different series ? Helical-Bevel, 2-Stage Helical-Bevel and 92 Series Helical-Bevel. These units provide superior performance in a compact, 97 per cent efficient modular design. UNICASE housings are manufactured to precision from high-strength, naturally corrosion-resistant are designed using the latest in FEM (Finite Element Modeling) technology.

NORD nsd tuph drive technology for extreme environment conditions is available in variety of products with which you are familiar for standard geared motors ? however, with the resistance of stainless steel and an outstanding price/performance ratio. The aluminium surface is coated with a special process to make it extremely durable. Together with a special sealing process, this layer is up to seven times harder than the basic aluminium material and up to 1,000 times harder than paints and lacquers ? and so has very low wear characteristics.

What scope for the drives you see in the Indian textile industry, which is poised to dig deeper into automation in the coming years? What are the Indian subsidiary?s future strategies to penetrate this market?

We are upgrading our products to a higher efficiency one as IE-2, IE-3, IE-4 and our decentralised drives will be value for money, space saving and support environment, as it will provide the best output and recover the total cost of ownership in the long run. We also strongly believe automation is going to be the order of the day and our products are Industry 4.0 ready, which can communicate from machine to machine. This helps in monitoring control maintenance easily.

Already our products are being used for semi-automation; they are being used in textile industries like conveying and packaging areas. We are positive that automation is on the rise in India as far as textile industry is concerned. Indian subsidiary is a part and parcel of Global NORD Network. We have ?One Product Global Warranty? philosophy. We want to aim and provide a global standard product for higher market penetration, we prefer supply of standard products with the aim of giving value for money to our esteemed customers and nothing produced specially for India.