Balluff Automation, a global leader with over 100 years of legacy, has been at the forefront of industrial innovation. In this interview with Sanjay Jadhav, Founder & Editor of Machine Edge Global, Dr Uday Bhalchandra, Managing Director of Balluff Automation India, discusses the company’s journey, its growth in the Indian market, and its commitment to innovation, sustainability, and smart manufacturing.
Can you give us an overview of Balluff Automation’s journey in India and its evolution over the years?
Balluff globally is more than 100 years old and is known for its high-technology products and technologies for critical applications in automation. The products and technologies offered are building a strong foothold in the automation market slowly but effectively in the Indian market.
We have recently completed five years in the Indian markets as a subsidiary. We had a tough time for two years because of Covid. With the strong support from Balluff APAC and Balluff HQ (Germany), we have aggressive growth plans in India for the next three and then for the next five years and onward.
At Balluff India, our approach to workforce sustainability, skill upgrades, and empowerment revolves around our commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements and meeting the evolving needs of the market.
With over a century of company history, how has Balluff maintained its leadership in industrial automation?
Maintaining leadership in the market is always full of challenges. Balluff has a unique quality standard. We call it Balluff quality: A high standard that exceeds applicable standards and that we offer you not only in our products and solutions, but also in our consulting and service.
Balluff is known for its expertise in sensor technology and automation. Can you elaborate on the latest innovations the company is bringing to the industry?
Innovating automation is our focus to serve the customer and market by offering best techno-commercial solutions. Our strategic orientation is to focus on the customer and the benefits that our solutions have for them. So Balluff focuses on meeting the specific requirements of respective industrial sectors quickly and in a targeted manner. “Innovating automation” is not just a brand claim for us in this regard but the standard we set for ourselves. As part of our Strategic Incubation Programs (SIP), we rely on an agile workflow to explore development of new and innovative business ideas within the framework of a lean start-up method. Through lean and agile processes, we develop customer-oriented concepts for selected, concrete use-cases in constant coordination and reviews with potential customers. In this way, an innovative idea becomes a custom-fit solution with a high degree of standardization. In this context, the competence centres within the Balluff Group ideally complement our production and technology network, drive innovative solutions, and support the introduction of new products. They each focus on the further development of specific technologies. The aim of our technology network is to reduce our time-to-market times and so to realise additional competitive advantages for our customers.
How does Balluff address the increasing demand for smart manufacturing and industrial IoT solutions in India?
Interconnected smart devices and machines are becoming more significant worldwide and are enabling automation across industries. Adding to this ever-increasing awareness of Industry 4.0, the use of AI will make the design of automation processes more complicated but more effective and better performing. Frankly, we cannot ignore IOT, AI, and Industry 4.0, however small or big the organisation is. Adapting to these trends is the only intelligent solution and we at Balluff have started taking into consideration these technological advancements well in time.
What challenges do you see in the Indian industrial automation landscape, and how is Balluff positioned to tackle them?
The challenges include the high initial cost of automation systems, a shortage of skilled workforce, complexities in integrating new technologies with existing systems, and cybersecurity concerns and a few more. But very interestingly, we really call describe them as challenges and not obstacles. This is because presently India is offering so many opportunities to grow because of its strong economy, we prefer to focus on the positives. As a partner for innovative solutions in industrial automation, we recognise the pivotal role our workforce plays in maintaining and enhancing our competitive position.
With sustainability becoming a focus globally, how is Balluff contributing to sustainable automation solutions?
Balluff offers technological solutions for every critical application and process, hence we need to be one step ahead in adopting these technological advancements as our routine initiative. Industrial automation is reshaping the Indian economy, unlocking opportunities for growth and development. By leveraging automation technologies, India can boost productivity, reduce costs, create employment opportunities and enhance its competitiveness on the global stage. In today’s ever-changing and extremely competitive business environment, nostalgia is of course a place to learn from but certainly not a place to live in. Not just products or technologies but also the ways of making businesses and reaching customers are changing.
How do you see India’s manufacturing sector adapting to these trends, especially with government initiatives like ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’?
Most of the industry verticals in India are on high growth trajectory. India is making a strong presence globally. There are so many opportunities for companies to grow domestically and in international market. But to do this the most important requirement is not just sustainable skilling and training but abilities of the companies to keep updating these skilling and training capabilities. Everything starts and ends with skilled and trained manpower in growing automation. Updating the skills and imparting new trainings should be the way of life for companies who want to sustain and grow in the highly competitive markets.
Make in India is an international marketing campaigning slogan coined by the Prime Minister of to encourage multinational companies and domestic companies to manufacture their products in India as an important investment destination and a global hub for manufacturing, design, and innovation. The campaign is aimed to attract foreign firms to set up their manufacturing units in India and to seek greater foreign investments
Similarly Digital India is an initiative of the Central Government of India designed to transform India into a global digitised hub by reviving a rundown digital sector of India with the help of improving digital connectivity and skill enhancement and various other incentives to make the country digitally empowered in the field of technology. Both these initiatives have helped India to be a bright spot in the world economies. Everyone is looking at India as the next most friendly and powerful investment destination. The best part of these initiatives, they are very successful from the initial period. Automation will also gain a lot because India is now prominent manufacturing hub for many top companies globally.