igus smart plastics add intelligence to systems

We always try to get delivered the best solutions that help the most to our customers.
Richard Habering, Head of Business Unit, igus smart plastics

We assure delivery of our cables for e-chains within 24 hours across the country.
Kevin Knust, Junior Product Manager, Chainflex, igus

On the sidelines of ELECRAMA 2018, Richard Habering, Head of Business Unit, igus smart plastics and Kevin Knust, Junior Product Manager, Chainflex, igus speak to EPR and give an overview of their business prospects. Excerpts:

Kevin, what exactly igus is focusing within Industry 4.0? How your connectors and the cables portfolio are going to play huge role in the same?
Kevin: We, at igus, not only produce and manufacture cables and e-chain systems, we are also into testing a lot. We have the biggest testing lab in the world for moving application where we test e-chains and chainflex cables of 2,750 sq.mts in width. At present, we are conducting 650 tests on lifetime of the cables. In the cable portfolio, the outer jacket where we have the wear resistance, oil resistance, cold resistance and some environment which are very cold for that we have different solutions for each application and product. In the Industry 4.0, it is very important to know the lifetime of the cables. We have now build up new business unit in igus called Industry 4.0 preventive maintenance.

Richard: Smart plastics make our product intelligent that helps to detect unusual conditions like break or giving alarm if something happen. On the other hand, the Internet is sync together with sever and our sensors communicates with Internet and sync and they give clear indication for next break. It helps customers to be aware early enough to plan repair or replacement and therefore avoid unnecessary downtime. End of the day it saves a lot of money.

What kind of business focus you have for the Indian market?
Richard: Indian market is the most growing and exploring market in the world because it has the huge population of 1.2 billion and there is increasing thrust on infrastructure development all around. We believe that there will be tremendous growth opportunity in the Indian market for the next 10 years. Being a Germen company, we are proud to be a part of this journey. Today we have around 200 Indian employees working in igus India.

What kind of business focus you have for the Indian market? What would be your future plan?
Richard: We never have a future plan – the only plan is to grow and it is decided by our customers. We always try to get delivered the best solutions that help the most to our customers.

Kevin: We assure delivery of our cables for e-chains within 24 hours across the country. We built up our supply chain in India. We have a wide and efficient supply chain that enhances our stock-keeping and assures timely delivery.

What kind of after-sales support you provide to the end users?
Kevin: The support to end users is not only selling the products, we are not selling only very fast we are also provide a good service. Good service means, in each area we have product engineers and sales engineers which are supporting the customers face to face for to select the application and any kind of product guidance they are always there to help. We are the company which has a very close relationship with the customers and which are supporting also directly at the application.