Industrial Automation Magazine India

Where Safety is the Cornerstone of Quality

Published on : Tuesday 30-11--0001

1. What role do you see automation playing in industrial infrastructure in India? Do you think we are at par with the global automation levels yet?

Automation plays an increasingly great role in daily life and rapidly growing industrialisation in India. Automation can help optimising the processes of any industry and can help on greater energy management. The level of automation is comparatively very low in India as compared to the developed countries. However, we see an encouraging environment for automation solution providers in India.

2. What is WISKA’s speciality in material handling automation systems?

We can offer to deliver the industry a one-stop supplier for a full range of cable entry and protection systems. Due to the modern handling system there are less and less people involved. Therefore, the safety of the electrical connections are becoming more and more important – and this is exactly what we pay special attention to: quality and safety of our products. Products of special interest for this field may be our Brace cable protection systems with its conduits and fittings, our EMC cable glands and CONMAXX cable entry systems.

3. Warehouse robotics will play a major role in supply chain automation. Do you have any products or any CoE for robotics in this field?

           

Yes, we do have products that may be of interest for robotics – these include our Brace conduits again for every application that has to withstand mechanical stress and movements. Completed by our high-quality EMC cable glands this will be a good cable solution for robotics.

4. What are your best product/ new/ innovative product that you plan to show case in the Expo? How is it unique?

We are going to present our brand new product lines Brace and CONMAXX – they both offer high-quality and safe cable entry and are ideally suited for automation applications.

Our Brace system is a comprehensive cable protection system consisting of metallic and non-metallic glands, conduits and sleeves protecting cables against mechanical stress, vibrations, heat, cold and water. Heart of the new product line is our BraceGLAND, an innovative non-metallic fitting, developed and produced in-house by WISKA. Thanks to its 360° clasp mechanism, this product is easy and safe to install at IP 68. For easy maintenance, its injected seal is always visible from the outside.

Our CONMAXX cable entry system offers plenty of application possibilities by its easy installation and modular set up. It consists of permanently closed 4 frame sizes, 4 variable grid inserts and about 100 conical sealing elements. Installation becomes a child´s game: First install the frame from the cabinet outside, then insert cables into sealings in the inside, place grid and enter the sealings – done.

Following this idea, we even created a new divided retrofit gland – which combines the CONMAXX seals with a divided gland and locknut, perfectly suitable for pre-fabricated cable installation.

5. Do you see any challenges in the growth of your industry? The particular segment you operate in, does it have any issues that need resolving? What are your recommendations?

Cable entries are still considered as class ‘C’ category procurement in any industry. One must understand the importance of cable entries for the electrical installation. Incorrect use of, for example, cable glands will lead to poor termination of cables on electrical equipment. Beside this, in India most customers still follow outdated BS standards & PG glands - whereas the world has moved to metric standards already for a long time. We at WISKA make our customers aware about various solutions and standards available and the advantages of use of the individual right cable entry solution.

6. What do you think is the strongest attribute or characteristic of your products that make them stand up to competition?

When developing and producing our products, for us, quality and safety always stand first. To achieve this, with our nearly 100 years of experience, we control every process of the entire supply chain ourselves. Research and development, material selection and purchasing, construction and manufacturing, testing, consulting, sales, marketing, logistics, after-sales service – everything is in our hands and is controlled by our strict quality management.

We develop products from our customers eyes and understand their needs as a challenge for us. Our products are made for the toughest conditions and are flexible to plenty of applications. For industry, we now offer the full range of cable entry and protection systems and also for the maritime industry, we are a single-source supplier when it comes toelectrical installation, lighting and camera surveillance, making life easier for our customers.

But further to our German engineering know-how and quality, we think that what really makes us a better partner to our customers is that we believe in building a good relationship to our customers – knowing and understanding each other to go for excellent collaboration. It is about mutual trust – doing great numbers together is important, but being able to rely on each other is even more important. As a family company over 3 generations, this is what we stand for.

7.       What do you observe as the trends in your industry? What products do you see as winners over the next 2-3 years?  

We foresee accelerated growth in renewable energy solutions like solar and wind. Our Venting solutions like VentGLAND and VentPLUG help to reduce moisture problems in outdoor applications and therefore will have a great potential in this market. In addition, also the metro / rail infrastructure development has great potential to use our cable glands with EN45545 standardsin the coming years.

8.       Maritime industry is your biggest playing field. Which other industries do your products find utility?

The maritime industry has been the origin of WISKA – defining the demands on our products. But with the development of a full range of cable entry solutions and also ranges of polyamide junction boxes, further industries appear to range on equivalent level to WISKA – these are, for example, automation, lighting, railway, machine and plant engineering, wind power generation, electrical industry and installation, plug and connector technologies.

All are locally taken care of by our network of agents and subsidiaries, like in India by WISKA India Pvt. Ltd., located in Mumbai globally  WISKA manufactures electrical equipment, lighting products and CCTV camera surveillance for shipbuilding, diverse industries and trade. Founded in Hamburg in 1919, the family-owned companytoday employs over 260 employees worldwide. The product range includes, for example, search- and floodlights, reefer container sockets, cable entry solutions, junction boxes and digital CCTV technology. WISKA operates its own research and development facilities and production plants next-door at its headquarters in Germany and has a global network of representatives and subsidiaries who ensure a quick and effective on-site customer service.