Why the welding industry in India is yet to attain the status of a mature industry |
Being the most economical and effective method of joining metals, welding plays a vital role in improving the life of manufactured products. Globally the welding industry has made excellent progress in terms of R&D of various welding modules by using modern calculation techniques and modelling. However, in India, the growth of advanced technology is very negligible except in some special applications by some organisations and institutions. For example, plasma cutting in recent times has gained prominence. Talking more on this, Abhinav Sood, sales leader, Hypertherm India says, “Compared to other thermal metal cutting systems, plasma cutting offers more advantages in terms of lesser Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) and better cut quality. These benefits complement the welding process, as they are important factors that affect the welding quality. Furthermore, plasma has higher productivity and material flexibility compared to conventional oxyfuel cutting processes, which makes it an integral part of a fabrication shop.”
For R&D and innovation to take place in any country there needs to be an application for that new product or process. For example, there has been an increased requirement for welding of nuclear energy products, super critical boilers, etc. in recent times in India. “Hence, there was no need for any R&D in India 10 years ago for these products because there was no application. This is contrary to what was happening in the western world where such products have been in use for more than 20 years. Similarly, lot of new steel materials are being introduced in the developed countries, hence the scope of technological advancements is huge there,” opines SM Bhat, managing director, Ador Welding Ltd.
In order to get technologically competitive, the first step is to get automated. But as of now majority of the welding processes are carried out by manual metal arc welding process while there is scope for large scale automation. Price certainly is one reason for manufacturers not to embrace automation. Seconding, GA Soman, Principal, Don Bosco Maritime Academy avers, “Price and the customer’s habit of accepting a mediocre product that is cheap has led to manufacturers not adopting automation. As poor quality through cheaper workforce (as compared to automation) is acceptable, there is no reason for manufacturers to go for better quality and repeatability through automation. As Indian consumers become more aware and demanding about quality, automation will become the norm.”
According to R Srinivasan, vice president, The Indian institute of Welding, the automobile sector especially the two and the four wheeler sectors have converted their manual welding to automation. “This kind of value addition is the need of the hour for any manufacturing segment. It is the skill required to meet the accuracy of the products. Low cost automation is the need of the hour as today large scale welding operations are done by MSME and SSI units who need to be educated to change. The main reason for low percentage of automation in our country is due to lack of knowledge for automation and the qualified personnel to handle the change.”
Automation is always a productive tool when the volumes are high. Though it is definitely a costlier affair to begin with as the capital cost is high the revenue cost, however, is low. Hence, one must have good volumes to cover the investment done in automation. Concurring Bhat avows, “Automation goes hand in hand with volumes and unfortunately in India, be it any sector- automotive, ship building, infrastructure, power, pre-engineered building (PEB) — volumes have gone down drastically in the last two years because of the economic cycle.” He further adds, “In order to adopt automation, volumes should be consistent, which is a little difficult to happen in a volatile economy like that of India. Hence, customers in our user industry do not go for automation. There are players who adopt low cost automation from China, but that is compromising on quality and productivity.”
VV Kamath, country head, Fronius India Pvt Ltd, believes that for those who want to adopt automation the right approach would be after changing the input component manufacturing process. “A welder may be able to understand and act on an inconsistent input component but automation needs a consistent input component simply because it will not think and act. Hence, by simply replacing the welder with robots will not work as automation has limitations as against the human skill and feel. Only if one is able to get consistent input quality of the component will automation work.” He also mentioned that there are only a few automation providers (integrators/SPM manufacturers) in India and they are not spread across the country. Majority of these providers are present in Pune and Mumbai and not so much so in the North and South. “This is another reason for automation not becoming very popular.”
The welding industry imports a lot of raw material as of today and this is another issue that the industry needs to deal with. The topic becomes a major concern as the manufacturers and the association are not on the same page. According to Srinivasan it is the welding product manufacturers of the country that should take up strongly about the need to develop quality and reliable products on consistent basis to meet the global challenges by establishing a full-fledged R&D. “The manufacturers association should also take an active part in discussions with the government to control the import and force it to set up the state –of- theart welding research units in the country.”
The manufacturers on the other hand want the welding association to take up the matter on behalf of them. “The raw material used in welding is steel and in India, we do not manufacture all grades of raw materials for joining of exotic materials and hence have to depend on imports. In this scenario, the welding association should take up the issue on behalf of the welding manufacturers and talk to steel producers. We have tried taking up the matter ourselves and have made it a point to mention to the steel manufacturers to work jointly in developing the raw material to substitute imports. But they do not want to focus on manufacturing low volume high cost material because the exotic materials are not required in high volumes since the application is minimal,” asserted Bhat. He goes on to say that even in foreign countries the application is minimal but they still manufacture the material in small quantities to support their industry. “Non availability of raw material in India is of major concern and hence they are forced to import. The welding association has to talk to steel producers to insist them to manufacture the raw material to substitute with the imports.”
Soman has an interesting suggestion to offer. He opines, “Coupled with collaborations with foreign manufacturers, research and innovation is certainly required to get the latest technology to India. We will have to develop our own model based on the Chinese model of manufacturing. This is easier said than done, but that appears to be the only way. Reverse engineering is another methodology which the Chinese are engaging in and Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan are past masters at that. A classic example of reverse engineering would be what the Indian pharmaceutical major “CIPLA” did and were hugely successful in India and in the international markets.”
Though the blame game continues both — the manufacturers and the association — are clear about their expectations from the government in terms of raising the bar of the Indian welding industry. Soman says that the government can help by encouraging indigenous product development (import substitution) and manufacturing through financial incentives coupled with measures to make imports costly. Srinivasan hopes for large scale projects in power, infrastructure, defence applications, railways, heavy engineering and other sectors to be sanctioned by the government. “Also, introduction of the welding engineering degree course as a bachelor’s degree in engineering colleges is a must. The government should set up R&D centres for welding with the support of the welding institutes. They should also establish the Indian welding codes and make them mandatory for manufacturing in the country and enforce the use of skilled personnel for welding applications.”
Bhat too talks on similar lines and presses for standards in the Indian welding industry. However, bringing in standards is not a short term plan but a long term one and he urges the government to take the lead in consultation with the association. Another apprehension of manufacturers is of not having enough facilities for long drawn testing methods available in India. For example, if a manufacturer wants to test a product for 10,000 or 30,000 hours, he does not have enough facilities available to do so and wherever there are facilities, the costs are so exorbitantly high that no private manufacturer can invest in it. Agreeing Bhat adds, “Absolutely. Also, if there is a failure while testing we have to start from zero and therefore the cost incurred to test that product until the failure would become null and void. Secondly, if at all a manufacturer goes ahead with the testing and the product is approved then because the cost incurred is so high it gets automatically passed on to the user. Thus, if standards are implemented properly, the manufacturer will keep the quality in check and the user too will use the product right.”
He recommends for the government to initiate a process where cost effective methods are introduced to conduct testing, which are mandatory, to release a product. He also urges the industry to chip in by resisting approvals given by approving agencies to any unorganised sector and create awareness by informing customers to not go for cheap products by compromising on quality. New projects in automotive, infrastructure, energy, transportation, process industry, defence and power plants will underline the strong growth of the Indian welding market over the medium and long term. The financial crisis has indeed affected the industry but this is the time for the government to act on recommendations so that when the economy bounces back the industry is all ready to meet the demand.