ENGINEERING EFFICIENTLY

Since its foray into the Indian market, EPLAN India has been consistently on an upward growth trajectory catering to diverse industrial segments with its host of high-quality offerings. An insight into its values, the unwavering focus on customers, and the company’s plans going ahead…

EPLAN India started as a subsidiary of EPLAN Germany in 2017, though it was present in India through its agents since the beginning of 2000. Its direct India operations were started to improve the engineering efficiency of the company’s Indian customers in the field of electrical, automation, and mechatronics engineering with its direct support and services including consulting. “It has been one exhilarating experience so far. We have increased our business multi-fold in the first couple of years from the business that we used to do through our agents. However, now there is a slowdown due to the recent pandemic, which we are sure, is a blip in our otherwise upward trajectory,” shares Umesh Pai, Managing Director, EPLAN India.

“We endeavor to engage with our customers in assessing their current set of engineering processes through our process consultancy and transform their engineering through software and implementation services along with our global support. We are engaged in a wide range of customers right from plants, machine design, warehouse automation, etc., catering to diverse industrial segments such as Automotive, Food and Beverages, Pharma, Power, and Process, etc.,” he adds.

The company has offices in Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Delhi. Its major international customers include MNCs such as VW, Ford, Daimler, ABB, Siemens, Yokogawa, GE, Atlas Copco, DMG Mori, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Krones, Kuka, Bosch, Festo, KK Winds, etc. Its list of Indian customers comprises L&T, LMW, Pari Robotics, Grindmaster, Ace Micromatic, Titan, Addverb, Hirotec, ACG group, Wipro, and BEML.

Receptive Indian market

Indian establishments, Umesh shares, have been very open and proactive about EPLAN’s offerings. “Competing in the global marketplace makes it imperative that our Indian customers focus intently on improving their efficiency and offer world-class quality products at competitive pricing, which indeed is our core strength. Engaging with our customers on global best practices opens up many avenues for us,” he notes. He points out a challenge too which is of end-to-end adaptation of technology that the company believes Indian enterprises are yet to fully internalize. To address this, EPLAN India is working closely with its customers so that they harness the complete benefit of a thorough implementation, resulting in reduced cost, increased efficiency, and improved quality of their products or associated services.

Engaging with customers

Umesh takes immense pride in the company’s high-quality offerings be it software or services. “We have a definitive methodology as to how we engage with our customers before sales for understanding their current systems and post sales for training and implementation,” he shares. This approach, according to him, helps customers realize the significant value that EPLAN India brings to their table to transform their processes.

Being part of the Friedhelm Loh Group, EPLAN India abides by the ten corporate principles defined by the Group. He singles out number 3, which focuses on customers, “We view our customers as our partners. We must satisfy their wishes and help to solve their problems for they are the guarantors of our future. Our products and services must offer clear benefits to our customers in particular concerning quality, technical capability, range, and availability.”

Efficient Engineering

EPLAN India has ‘Efficient Engineering’ as its focus. When asked the vision behind it, Umesh explains, “All companies in their day-to-day activities create a humongous amount of knowledge and data. Our focus, in the field of electrical and automation space, is to influence both the creation and consumption of this data in such a way that the customer realizes maximum benefit with the least cost. Hence the terms such as platform, standardization, automation, configuration management, etc. That is why we say, ‘Efficient Engineering is when a plan becomes EPLAN’.”

Beefing up industry-academy bond

EPLAN India is engaged with several academic institutions through its solutions including EPLAN Platform, EPLAN ePULSE. “Academic institutions play an important role in our strategy to reach out as many users as we possibly can. We are engaged with top-notch universities to bridge the gap between academia and the industry. We are associated with the study boards of multiple organizations in terms of formulating their curriculum, practical set-ups, etc. A case in point is our association with PSG College in Coimbatore,” he shares. The company has set up an EPLAN – Excellence Center for Robotics. Similarly, it is in various levels of discussion with premier institutes for setting up innovation labs. “Here, we are working along with our group company Rittal and designing unique offerings like Automation labs, etc.,” he adds.

Broadening the horizon

Other than catering to its existing customers/industries, EPLAN India plans to deepen its engagement with the Indian Railways, Water Treatment industries, and Warehouse Automation industries, where, according to Umesh, lies a huge potential for Indian industries to grow. “It would be a necessity of Indian firms to invest heavily in technologies that would make them not only efficient but also completion proof. Since these fields are projected to be of rapid growth, we see a significant number of startups entering, resulting in intense competition. This is best suited for us to broaden our engagements and thus be at service to our customers. We will be able to share our know-how as well as best practices which can make our customers in markets like Europe successful along with our clientele here,” he sums up. 

Source: EPLAN India

Poonam Pednekar
Chief Copy Editor
Magic Wand Media Inc
poonam.pednekar@magicwandmedia.in

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