Industrial Automation Magazine India

India has been a fast-growing market for E+E products

Published on : Thursday 07-04-2022

Heinz Kindlhofer, Managing Director, E+E Elektronik Ges.m.b.H.

Can you please provide us with some insights on E+E Elektronik group and your products?
E+E Elektronik was established in 1979 as a greenfield project by the well-known Austrian steel producer Voestalpine. At that time Voestalpine had some business with IBM connected with thin film processing and assembly – a kind of microchips – and that was the initial activity of E+E. In 1990, E+E started manufacturing sensing elements and now we develop and produce sensing elements, modules, sensors hand-helds and data loggers for relative humidity, moisture in oil, dew point, air velocity, flow, CO2, temperature and pressure. We also operate a nationally accredited calibration lab, which is appointed to maintain the national standards for humidity, dew point, air velocity and gas concentration CO2 in Austria.
 
All our production is based in Austria where we have about 350 employees and 450 globally. We have seven sales &service subsidiaries all over the world of which three are in Europe – Germany, Italy and France – and one in each in the US, China and South Korea, and now this new one in India, at Mumbai, from March 1, 2022. Our subsidiaries help bring us closer to our customers and have better understanding of their requirements and needs. We have trained sales engineers – as a matter of policy all our sales representatives are trained initially at the E+E Academy in Austria and we provide through all our subsidiaries calibration and repair services, especially for our industrial products. This also enables us to keep the response time short, to the minimum.
 
This concept of training at a central Academy is interesting – how does it work?
What we have is a quarterly training schedule at the academy where our sales team come and learn the finer points. They have already had some experience of customer visits along with their seniors and are familiar with the products. The idea of this training at the academy is to maintain a uniform standard and each one of the sales representatives have to qualify after training so that the customer gets the best service.
 
What are the various business segments for E+E Elektronik group?

This is an interesting question because our business is huge with a wide range of products catering to different industries like petroleum, steel, food and beverages, HVAC and more, so there are market segments. These are broadly agriculture, steel, engineering, pharmaceuticals, etc., which are focus areas for us and this also depends on the markets we operate in – for example our focus in the US, Germany or Korea could be on a different segment than what is our focus here. In India, I can say our focus would be on agriculture – food & beverages; clean room technologies, plant engineering, power generation, etc.
 
Globally we have divided our business into 3 verticals – basic sensing elements, products and calibration services. We have our own manufacturing setup including a clean room to produce highly reliable and accurate products starting from basic elements to complete value-added products.
 
What are the changes you have experienced post-Covid, and how it has impacted your business globally?
We are not really adversely impacted due to Covid, and that is because we are basically focused on sensing measurement, which one can say is future oriented. Say, businesses like gas engines or diesel engines are now looking at a changing landscape due to environmental awareness, and not due to Covid. The awareness leading to this green movement and sustainability is not related to Covid and is actually good for our business. However, Covid has helped us due to the fact that the pharmaceutical industry has been booming, especially the production of vaccines, which requires a certain production environment. The other aspect, especially in Europe which resulted in better business for us is the need for effective ventilation in schools. Many schools had no integrated air conditioning and this fact was considered hazardous as it helped spread the virus. Our CO2 room sensor with traffic light display reliably shows the carbon dioxide concentration in the ambient air, which helps to decide on the need for ventilation. Other companies providing products for such air conditioning also needed this product from us.
 
How big is the India market for E+E products? Is agriculture a big part of it?
India has been a fast-growing market for E+E products, and we are not new here as we have been selling our products in India for the last 20 years through distribution partners and the growth in business is amazing. Our initial assessment indicates that the available market for E+E products is a few hundred million Euro, and it is growing at an unbeatable pace. The focus, as mentioned earlier, would be agriculture, food & beverages; steel industries, plant engineering, power generation, etc. In regards to agriculture, it is more food processing as far as I understand, unlike Europe or the US, the farm sector in India is not really organised for that area and is still not automated. But food processing is certainly growing.
 
Will you also be offering calibration and services in India via your Indian subsidiary?
High reliability calibration and local services has been the voice of our customers for a long time. With the opening of E+E India office and keeping this demand in our mind; our first office in Mumbai will be equipped with a calibration and service facility very soon. The laboratory setup is already ongoing.
 
With the growing focus of sustainability, how does the company see its own growth prospects, especially in emerging markets like India?

A lot of initiatives in sustainability are around energy efficiency and we have several products for this, be it the HVAC or machine efficiency. Take the example of the flow meters which help optimise the use of compressed air which is energy intensive to produce and hence very expensive. Our flow sensors help detect leaks and blockages in air pipelines and save a lot of wastage, as also the humidity and temperature sensors which help optimise cooling and heating operations. Also, the sensor density in the machine framework is increasing today as a lot of parameters are monitored for better efficiency. OEMs have to convince their end customers how their machines are better in terms of efficiency. So, while sustainability in terms of environment is an opportunity, sustainability of the business for OEMs in terms of energy efficiency is a bigger opportunity for us.
 
As a subsidiary, what are the other facilities you are planning in India as your products are highly engineered products?
E+E products are used in some of the most demanding and critical applications across the globe in diversified industries. To get to the right solution; there is a high need for technical engagement with the customers. We are setting up an application engineering department in India which will have professional engineers trained at our E+E Academy in Austria.
 
With the opening of E+E India first office in Mumbai; our customers will be able to buy our products directly and with the shortest possible lead time. E+E India office will also serve the neighbouring countries Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Apart from commercial transactions; our customers will also have access to our qualified technical team to discuss solutions for their critical applications. Periodic calibration of sensors which are already installed at site will become much easier for our customer. We are very confident that our subsidiary in India is on the path to getting increasing market share by offering best in class “Made in Austria” quality products and services. 
 
What are your future and expansion plans for the India market?
There is a huge push from the government for Make in India, and the various policies are now also encouraging more local manufacturing, which could lead us to do some local assembly operations here. The infrastructure push, especially the growth of metro networks is a good business opportunity for us, as it is for the country as infrastructure leads to a lot of other development activities and also provides citizens with a better quality of life.
 
With the opening of its own subsidiary, E+E is committed to remaining closer to the customer; adhering to our commitment, we will be opening up multiple regional and branch offices in India and will also expand the scope of our business operation including but not limited to local assembling