Mr. Volker Nesenhoner, Chief Executive Officer, OPEN MIND Technologies AG, talks about hyperMILL & Indian Market

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2018-11-06 00:34:00

OPEN MIND Technologies AG develops and sells innovative CAD/CAM solutions that generate optimized NC milling and turning programs for machine tools from digital models.

Manufacturers from a broad range of industries around the globe have adopted OPEN MIND products as it enables cost-effective and efficient manufacturing. This efficient manufacturing leads to the production of models, prototypes, tools, moulds, prismatic workpieces, integral components and more, of highest quality standards.

CNCTimes in conversation with Mr. Volker Nesenhoner, Chief Executive Officer, OPEN MIND Technologies AG, Mr. Nitin Jain, Vice President, Strategic Business – Asia, OPEN MIND Technologies AG, and Mr. Rajeev Vaidya, Managing Director OPEN MIND India

Interview excerpts:

What is the purpose of your visit to India?

There are two main reasons for which I have traveled to India. One is to meet our newly recruited member Mr. Nitin Jain, Vice President, Strategic Business – OPEN MIND, Asia. Nitin is a specialist in turbomachinery and Aerospace machinery and we would like to grow our business precisely in this area. The second reason is to meet Rajeev Vaidya, our Country Manager of OPEN MIND India and the OPEN MIND team. At present, we have 14 offices worldwide.

hyperMILL is one of the leading CAM solutions worldwide. Our customers come from all industry sectors, just to name the most important ones: aerospace, turbomachinery, automation, die, and mould, automotive. OPEN MIND is a pioneer in 5-axis technology since we started 25 years ago. hyperMILL offers a bunch of unique and powerful 5-axis strategies, which can’t be found anywhere. We want to increase our presence in India and show users the possibilities and advantages they will achieve with hyperMILL. We see a lot of potential in the Indian Aerospace sector in general.

Mr. Nitin Jain is the right person to take upon this role since he has a wide experience and specializes in the Aerospace market. He speaks the right language and knows the advantages and the capabilities of hyperMILL and has long-term experience in the industry.

There are many functionalities in hyperMILL that have yet to be explored for their potentiality in the aerospace market. Nitin is an expert in that, and he is from concept NREC and expert in turbomachinery, so we are looking to get good business through him. I am delighted that he joined us, and we are now pushing these specific topics because we would like to increase our market.

What is the position of hyperMILL in the current market?

Mr. Volker

Most of our competitors started more than 10 years before us. Next year, we will celebrate our 25th anniversary. At that time, we thought about our role in the CAM market because other companies were focussed on 3-axis and no one was working on five-axis capabilities. We grabbed the opportunity and developed one of the leading CAM solutions worldwide.  Everything that we did and experienced in 5-axis, we want to bring that to our 3-axis software retaining the same quality and the same idea. And now, according to CIMdata, we are at the 5^th position concerning revenue since some years

Mr. Nitin Jain

Other companies are selling multiple products. We are one of the few companies that focuses on one product. hyperMILL is a strong CAM solution. Just for 5-axis machining, we offer our customers more than 30 powerful 5-axis cycles.

Mr. Rajeev Vaidya

hyperMILL is a very powerful software which comprises strong 2.5, 3D, 5-axis, mill-turn strategies as well as unique automation functionalities. We are present in all industry sectors and hyperMILL is well known in the relevant Indian markets. Nevertheless, there is still a big potential for our leading 5-axis technology. We are happy to have Nitin on board to help us increase our presence in the aerospace market further on.   

Mr. Volker

If you work with hyperMILL, you don’t need any other software to do machining, be it milling or turning. To make CAD modifications and visualization, we have our own CAD for CAM solution embedded into the system right from 2D, 5-axis machines to EDM. hyperMILL covers all the needs including tool path verifications and collision avoidance system.  Our software has an infrastructure through which we can apply new innovative technologies anytime. We make our customers happy because we deliver two releases per year with a lot of new features and functionalities.  I do believe that hyperMILL will continue to grow in the upcoming years due to our new developments and the innovative solutions which we offer.

hyperMILL is doing fantastic in the 5-axis segment but what will be your strategies to cater to the mid-lower segment market that is 3-axis?

Mr. Volker

We have the technology and capability to cater to every segment of the market. We have a lot of SME customers who are using our automation services. These automation services can automatically read data from CAD files and create a high-end tool path.  One of our customers uses hyperMILL smoothly and without any intervention for making wings for the Airbus A350 and 24x7 through automation. Automation is a significant trend in the CAM industry these days.

Very often we enter the customer site with 5-axis solutions, as we are proficient in it and sometimes we can offer a solution that no other company has been able to provide. However, our customers also use these functionalities very easily for 3-axis machining. In the end, it doesn’t matter what kind of job you are performing, after all, it all about linking the tasks at which we excel. We are committed to catering to a wider audience and have invested a lot of money and time to increase our market share.  We also have some customers using hyperMILL 3-axis capabilities and saving more than 50 percent of machining time. They are very happy with the results.

What are your views about the subscription model?

Mr. Volker

It is a good model if utilized correctly. We are not against it, but most of our customers prefer a perpetual license. For example, in India, government organizations usually prefer to buy a perpetual license for outright ownership of the software. However, if the customer is exceptionally interested, we do whatever is necessary to help the customer.

Why have you opted for direct selling rather than resellers in the Indian market?

Mr. Rajeev Vaidya

We are interested in direct selling rather than opting for resellers in India. I can count on my employees, and if you do what you love, then it becomes easy. My people are dedicated, passionate and like what they do. We are a team of 10 people at OPEN MIND India, and very soon we are going to increase our numbers. Working directly with our customers ensures we are fulfilling our commitment to making them successful. The customers can confidently choose our solution as they are guaranteed quality support/service directly from us, including access to OPEN MIND experts. Nowadays even the SME’s in India are quality driven. Their customers are not ready to compromise on quality and with hyperMILL, they can rest assured.

Mr. Nitin Jain

The Aerospace and Defence sector is prospering these days due to ‘Make in India’ initiative, by the Government of India. We are committed and don’t want to lose out on this booming industrial growth in India. For this, we are further investing in solutions for 5-axis which are even more advanced and reliable for the Aerospace and Defence sector. We already have a lot of named customers in India and abroad from the aerospace industry.

Mr. Volker

Our strategy for addressing the Indian market will be at a steady pace because we want to recruit people who are passionate and love what they do. We want to motivate them to work according to our system which will bring us the desired results. I understand that to address every segment in the Indian market is a considerable challenge as the market is very vast but definitely, we will achieve it, not immediately but slowly.

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