We see big opportunity in control room solutions
Published on : Tuesday 07-04-2020
Amit & Puneet Talesara, in conversation with Industrial Automation during the PPPA Meet 2020, talk about automation and much else. Excerpts…
How do you view the future of industrial automation in the Indian industry?
Amit: The future of automation in Indian industry is very good. With the advent of IoT-based infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence, it will be definitely bright. You can imagine a factory where everything like machines, material handling systems, controls and other things are connected through IoT devices and the data transferred to a central place and analysed. Now you see in this set up, a crane will actually inform the operator it needs maintenance as it experiences a jerk while switching on/off, or that it can save energy if operated in a particular way. Similarly, a furnace would inform when it needs calibration. All this will facilitate predictive maintenance. In production, there will be similar inputs about the status where a line is running below capacity, helping optimisation. Such inputs in turn facilitate decision making, especially when it comes to capex – investing in production machines.
Are you hinting at a paradigm shift in the industry?
Amit: Yes, indeed, that is how it is going to be and many companies are adopting it. For example, we have recently got a metal forming machine from an Italian company. The maintenance is looked after by remote from Italy via the internet, with alerts and instructions received to replace the coolant and even other hardware. In days to come, even the power distribution board will be completely automated – with the help of the smartphone one can switch on/off different feeders. The technology already exists for this.
What is your impression about this event – PPPA Meet 2020?
Amit: The venue is excellent, being within the airport complex. Once you enter the venue you have a look at all the booths at a glance – say hello to friends and acquaintances from various companies, all from the same fraternity – and then enter the conference hall. It is just perfect, with all key decision makers available right here!
Puneet: This event has a good combination of knowledge sharing and networking – you get to know of several new developments and among the exhibitors there are new products that you can use. So it is an ideal place to be – a win-win situation so to say.
Having said that, do you have any suggestions for future meets like this, to make them even better?
Amit: The event is really well organised with the right ambience, and I would rate it as one of the best for events in this category, next to the really big events organised by large trade bodies. Also the fact that there are no casual visitors at all – just the decision makers. We would like to see more companies as exhibitors as well as more delegates attending the sessions. The event should also include startups, as we need innovations, which is very important.
Puneet: I would like to add that the organisers also consider the patents filed by companies during the year and have an award for that too – patents filed by Indian companies in India. That will be a good encouragement for companies engaged in R&D. The number of patent applications filed in India annually is miniscule compared to China or USA.
Talking about startups, where are the startups in hard core automation?
Amit: While we have enough skills in applications, when it comes to manufacturing, we are still lagging behind on many fronts, most notably R&D. The government perhaps can help in this area with incentives as this is highly capital intensive. There is no effective lobbying for manufacturing when it comes to industrial automation. As a result, thanks to imports of components, automation has become an easy thing to develop applications, but not in manufacturing which is what we need. The kind of startups that flourish in service industry is not happening in the manufacturing industry, which is an area that needs serious attention. The irony is, a loss making service industry gets angel investment but not profit making manufacturing industry, when it comes to startups!
From making just panels, you are now offering control room solutions. What are the highlights of these solutions?
Puneet: We started offering control room solutions around 10 years ago. Till date we have done more than 300 turnkey projects. We do custom designed control rooms from concept till commissioning and exporting them to several countries. Presently we are supplying these to Australia – a large order of 830 control rooms covering 22 cities. We have also done 5 control rooms for Qatar for the FIFA World Cup 2022 for cybersecurity. We are into non-IT infrastructure, but we have IoT integrated into these control rooms, the only company in the world to do this. For example, if the operator is sitting in a wrong posture, there will be an alert to correct the posture – it is a sensor based system. We actually started with the control desk and then added the furniture and then realised that there was no such integrated solution available anywhere globally so we added the air conditioning, fire safety and other features like acoustics, ergonomics, lux calculation, etc., eliminating the need for the customer to approach multiple vendors. Recently we have tied up with Schneider Electric and are exclusive partners with Thales Group. So we are not into dead pieces of furniture but smart systems. We can also provide built-in services, e.g., ordering beverages for the operator.
What is the potential for this business, what are the projections?
Puneet: We see big opportunity in this, both in India and overseas. Last year we did Rs 130 crore turnover and expect to do better this year. We have done several control rooms for the police forces across states and also for various smart city projects – 30 control rooms for Delhi and Lucknow last year – it is substantial business.
Amit: Even in our home town, Udaipur, we have a good chunk of business in electrical and automation for public transport – bus stops with display of estimated arrival time for buses – an order for 106 smart bus stops. The control room can monitor actual bus position through GPS, tracking driver trips, smart ticketing, etc. Also other things like automation of pumps in water utilities. Besides we also do control rooms for the core sector of Oil & Gas, which are capex oriented projects with stringent compliance requirements to IEC60079 certification standards, and we are catering to this segment too.
Finally, how do you see the control room evolving into the future?
Puneet: Control rooms have evolved from bulky switches to colourful pushbuttons and now touch controls and the evolution will continue. Over the next few years these will not become manless, but there will be much less human presence in the control room, more artificial intelligence. But this is still about 10 years away from now.
Amit Talesara is Director, Pyrotech Electronics Pvt Ltd and Puneet Talesara is Managing Director, Pyrotech Workspace Solutions Pvt Ltd. At PPPA Meet 2020, Puneet Talesara was honoured with Excellence in Leadership Award.
