New safety and emission requirements are having a major impact on the buying behaviour in the highly discerning Indian automobile market. In this interview with Manish Pant, Mahesh Gulati, Managing Director, Komax Automation India Pvt Ltd says that at a time when data traceability has become very important his company is committed to helping Indian OEMs adopt the latest technologies in this regard.

What new products does Komax have on offer for 2020?

Our prime focus is to be in line with the global mega-trends within the industry, such as the automation of manual work, networked factories, e-mobility and autonomous driving. The shift towards electric vehicles includes a significant change in the wiring harness, which involves replacing some of the standard cables to high voltage cables. In this regard, we are offering an entry-level as well as high-end solutions for processing the high voltage cables. Furthermore, the key transition is all about data transparency and quality traceability, which requires smart and connected machines. We are providing several digital solutions to address this arena too. Moreover, we will soon launch our new fully automatic crimping machine model Gamma 448. It’s again based on the concept of smart machines.

What is the most important industry trend at the moment?

Some of the important trends are the continuous increase in the electronics content in the vehicles and the move towards implementation of Bharat
Stage (BS)-VI standards, which is resulting in the implementation of sensor cables, co-axial cables and high-speed data cables in the wire harness, to a great extent. Komax offers solution for handling these challenging applications, to its customers.

How are you educating your customers to adapt to the changing requirements of the market especially with the ongoing technological disruptions?

Komax being a Switzerland based company with a global footprint
closely follows the emerging
trends by keeping close interaction with the global OEMs and accordingly develop solutions keeping in mind the future technological challenges in the wire processing. What you described as disruption has already happened in Europe and other Western markets and is now also becoming visible in the Indian automotive industry. We try to bridge that gap through our solutions. We not only support our customers
with our machines but have also adopted a consultative approach towards collective and collaborative growth.
This involves holding regular workshops, seminars, etc., in our bid to proactively prepare our customers for the upcoming technological challenges in wire processing.

What type of data solutions are required for your customers?

Due to stringent safety and pollution control norms, data traceability has become very important for OEMs. In the eventuality of an incident or customer complaint, the harness makers should be able to trace the data to check all the processing parameters to diagnose what went wrong, while processing the wires. This requires the machines to be smart to record all events to ensure transparency of data between OEMs and harness manufacturers.

How do you see the Indian automobile market evolving in the third decade of the 21st century?

We are living in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world and that makes any prediction difficult. Yet, on the other hand, India is a very special country, where the market is majorly driven by the preferences of the younger generation or the millennials. Each automaker is launching five to six new models every year! This doesn’t happen elsewhere. With our youth being very demanding in terms of features and technology even the entry-level cars come loaded with the latest features. Having said that, EVs and cars based on alternate energy sources will be the future. In the present scenario, EVs would be the major focus for India over the next five years or so. Besides that, technologies used in the automobile to enhance safety and to follow the strict emission norms are also evolving and are starting to have an impact on consumer buying behavior.