G Radhakrishnan
Managing Director Sieger Spintech Equipments Pvt Ltd
Industrial automation is inevitable and is the need of the hour
Sieger Spintech Equipments Pvt Ltd offers cost-effective solutions in sheet metal fabrication, textile machinery and industrial automation. G Radhakrishnan, Managing Director of Sieger, talks about the level of automation in the textiles industry.
How would you describe the current state of the Indian textiles industry?
The Indian textiles industry is currently looking promising in terms of both strong domestic consumption as well as export demand. High disposable incomes coupled with a rise in consumerism has increased the textiles demand in India. The Indian textiles industry contributes 5 per cent to the GDP and 14 per cent in IIP. It employs nearly 40 million directly and 60 million people indirectly, making it the second biggest employment provider after agriculture. The total sales value of textile goods is estimated to be around $108 million, out of which $68 million is sold in the domestic market.
What are your thoughts on Industry 4.0 and robotics for automation in the textiles industry? What is the feasibility of such technology in India?
Industrial automation is inevitable and is the need of the hour. As availability of skilled and unskilled labour force is decreasing day by day, automation in textile machinery is a boom for the textiles industry. Sieger has thought about this well in advance and we have started producing machines with a lot of automation and robots. For example :
We produce yarn conditioning plant with full automation which we call an Auto line. This plant consists of automatic loading of trolleys, automatic increase of moisture content in the pre-conditioning chamber, conditioning of the textile material in the yarn conditioning plant and unloading of trolleys.
C to C, short form for cone-to container system is where we employ robots in our machinery and it is a sophisticated and automated system to pick, transport, pack and store the cone from the automatic winders to storage yards.
What is the USP of your textile machinery products?
We at Sieger use the best quality and reliable inputs in our textile machinery production which has given us a good name in the industry. Our automation improves mill productivity, ensures consistent quality in the finished product, consumes less power, is low maintenance, and increases labour utilisation.
What is the size of the Indian textile machinery market? At what rate is it growing?
The Indian textile machinery industry comprises about 1,500 units, out of which 80 per cent are medium and small-scale manufacturers. About 40 per cent of them are engaged in the production of complete machines, and the rest are into production of parts and accessories. The market size of the textile machinery sector is about $12,000 crore, out of which domestic production stands at $7,000 crore and import is about $4,300 crore. The market is growing at a rate of about 4 per cent.
What do you think of textile machines 'Made in India'? How are they faring globally?
Indian textile machinery exports to the global market are about 5.5 per cent, which is very far off from other countries like China. Though the products have been accepted by mills abroad, they still fear about support, aftersales service, and availability of spare parts.
Which machines are in demand, and in which regions of the domestic and export markets?
We have a very good demand for YCP, ADOF and Auto Line. Recently, many mills showed interest to implement automation in the roving transportation system and conversion of existing manual ring doffing system to automatic. Medium and fine count mills find it uneconomical to go for link coners. So they show more interest to convert existing ring frames with manual doffing to automatic doffing. Demand for such products is good in north India, and in Bangladesh, Uzbekistan and Indonesia.
What kind of after-sales services do you provide?
Sieger takes care of complete erection and commissioning of machinery. We also undertake warranty service and troubleshooting. Post-warranty, we enter into annual maintenance contracts with customers. We ensure timely supply of spare parts to our customers for uninterrupted production.
Which are your major domestic and international markets?
Our main market in India is north India, especially Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Major export markets for us are Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia.
What new technologies and innovations are trending in this industry?
In order to improve productivity, overcome labour shortages in the mill and produce consistent quality, many manufacturers are concentrating on increasing automation in their machinery. To compete with the international players' cost-effective solutions from raw material selection to production, methods are being adopted wherever possible without comprising the quality of our products.
What are the challenges that the textile machinery manufacturers face in India? What can be done to overcome them?
Textile machinery manufacturers are facing a lot of major issues: lack of skilled labour, lack of sustained demand from the mills, high interest rates.
What is the budget you allocate towards R&D annually?
We generally allocate 4 per cent of our revenues towards R&D. We have a very strong and motivated R&D team with several patents to our credit.
Published on: 12/12/2016
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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