Machining technology is evolving continuously and this brings huge potential: Makarand Dande

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2017-01-02 10:11:00

HAIMER is a family run, medium size company located in Igenhausen, Bavaria near Augsburg, Germany. It designs, produces and sells innovative, high precision products for metal cutting industries including automotive, aerospace, energy, rail, implants, Die Mould and general machining.
Product offering includes the largest range of tool holders in all popular interfaces and gauge lengths, shrinking and balancing machines, well as 3-D Sensors, solid carbide tooling.

HAIMER is able to secure its future skilled employees with strong apprenticeship program and fulfill its contribution to further educate young adults. It is the European market leader in the area of tool holding technology, with a daily capacity of approx. 2,000 tool holders. Keeping the technological edge of products is very important to the company and hence every year it invests between 8 and 10% of revenue in research and development. Every day HAIMER desires to be better and that works perfect with its corporate philosophy: Quality Wins.

HAIMER India is headed by Mr. Makarand Dande. As Managing Director of HAIMER India, he has been instrumental in taking the company to new highs. Here, he shares with Bhalchandra Chorghade, Editor, CNCTimes.com, the company’s journey apart from his views about the Indian market.

The Excerpts:

Tell us about your company in brief.
HAIMER GmbH Germany, founded in 1977, has manufacturing facility at Igenhausen, Germany and 600 employees worldwide. It is global leader in manufacturing of high precision fine balanced tool holders, advanced shrink fit tool clamping technology, tool dynamic balancing machine, cutting tools and measuring instruments. In all 14 subsidiaries including HAIMER India brings us close to customer.

Please describe HAIMER’s journey in India.
Haimer India Pvt Ltd was established in 2008 with an objective of being a competent partner close to the customer and always believed in offering our group philosophy of “Quality Wins”. Essence of good tool holding and importance of balanced tools which was bit ignored segment earlier has been stressed upon by HIPL team and our concept selling on the same still continues on the subject. We have been collaborating with the customers in their process optimization and HAIMER technology has been adopted by various segments including automotive, auto component, die mold, aerospace, implants ,educational institute etc. Our commitment towards quality can be seen not only in our products but in our after sales services as well. It’s been exiting journey for HAIMER India.

According to you, what should be the approach while selecting a machine? Price or Application?
It should be the capability of the machine to handle the applications. It is not only the ability of the machine to produce the quality part, but also reliability and consistency for machine lifecycle.

What is your company’s approach as regards selling the products?
Haimer currently deals in 2 types of machines shrink fit tool clamping machine and tool dynamic balancing machine. While most of our customers are technically sound, what we are doing is generating great awareness in the market for our advanced technologies and how they are helpful in overall process optimization. By switching to and adopting With HAIMER shrink fit technology, customers can easily save 25 to 30% on overall tool spending and thus with small initial capital investment customer goes on saving lot of money which in turn is profit for the organization. Parallely customer can adopt higher cutting parameters generating additional capacities. Our application team has been proving this to customers on daily basis and more and more industries are switching to HAIMER shrink fit over other conventional system available in market.
Imagine you are driving a car and wheel has unbalance? Based on running speed what happens is centrifugal force gets squared thus damaging performance of car –apply same logic to machining.
It is misconception that balancing is required only for high speed machining. It’s not the case. The unbalance in the mass which is rotating in the spindle will decide whether tool can be run at given parameters. Unsymmetric toolware, machine noise during cutting, inconsistent tool performance are the issues faced in daily use and tool balancing is the only solution for reliable process.
One of the customers approached us as his new integral boring bar was giving erratic results. While we checked the tool unbalance was G10 grade and no wonder customer was facing problem, we balanced it at G2.5 customer started getting consistent results and not only that they bought balancing machine for inward inspection and balancing of tool in his shop.

What is HAIMER’s USP?
HAIMER is the only tool holder Manufacturer Company which is also manufacturing tool balancing machine. Two interrelated areas of machining can thus be guaranteed only with HAIMER. Shrinking cycle in blink of eyes coupled with our NG coil technology- dynamic balancing machine with accuracy and repeatability of 0.5gmm are some of key USP. One who uses HAIMER believes he is using best.

How is Indian market performing with respect to manufacturing sector?
Manufacturing industry is one of the country’s highest growing sectors. New manufacturing hubs with golden corridors are being setup with infrastructure upgradation and ease in policies. This will bring positive cheer attracting more manufacturing. Some automotive company has already declared India will be their small car hub and many aerospace companies have started offloading more and more in India.

What are the challenges being faced by the industry considering global scenario?
Infrastructure, intermittent power in some areas were the challenges however situations are changing fast to positive. This positive change is bringing a culture of ownership.

How Make in India campaign can help the manufacturing industry?
It’s a great initiative and while there is good inflow of FDI, we have to wait for success but we are optimistic. While we have already seen investment in aerospace and mobile industry for example, more new segments coming on Make in India campaign will take the concept to a different level bringing far more opportunities to all sectors

Do you think that Indian market is price sensitive?
Indian market was and is price sensitive. Many customers used to and still go by price than the technical superiorities. However, this trend is constantly changing towards positive since last couple of years and more and more approach is coming considering ROI and profitability due to investment.

What are your company’s plans for the next three years?
We will be focusing on expanding the local team so as to double our goals. We will be adding few more products in our product basket as well will be putting our show room in some key industrial cities.

Any other point you would like to highlight?
In India, the machining technology is evolving continuously and upgrading from conventional to high speed and high feed for overall better performance. This brings huge potential.

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