Robots were soon going to replace human for mundane jobs. This is what we had foreseen with technology shift in this era. But this has been made possible by none other than Alstrut India Private Limited by providing turnkey robotics and industrial automation solutions to discrete manufacturing industries.
Headquartered in Chennai with branch offices in all major industrial cities in India, Alstrut is a company providing components for building machines, industrial automation solutions and robotic solutions to clients from across the world. With providing solutions to clients in industries as diverse as automobile to FMCG to electrical/ electronic manufacturing companies, Alstrut gets involved at the stage of preliminary design discussions, manufacturing and deploying the project at the customers site.
Since innovating for 20 years now, Alstrut has come out with a new concept on robotics in India, “Collaborative Robot”. “Collaborative Robot is a kind of robot which collaborates with human and work with human. Human can use their minds in planning tasks and robot does the mundane job of completing the task.” Says Mr. Anuj Bihani, MD, Alstrut India Private Limited.
With a Mechanical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering followed by Masters in Manufacturing from North Carolina State University and MBA from the prestigious Indian School of Business along with other areas of study in Corporate and Global strategy, Mergers and Acquisitions, Pricing Products and Services for Profitability and Entrepreneurial studies; Mr. Bihani has been master of all trades.
Prior to this, Mr. Bihani has been a project leader with Intel in their Automated Material Handling System- Install/ Qual department. He has been one of the partners with Toshni- Tek International and has served as the CEO of Electro Automation India for a long 22 years as well.
Since inception in 2003, Alstrut has been providing innovative product design, enabling quick turnaround of Assembly Lines, Industrial Workstations, Conveyors, Sorters, Robotic Pick & Place and other custom solutions. They have a dedicated team for the designing and manufacturing of assembly technology components; complying with Design for Assembly. They are the preferred distributor of Universal Robots (Denmark) in India which is the world’s largest manufacturer of collaborative robots (COBOTS) with a payload ranging from 3kg to 10kg.
Along with that, they are also the preferred distributor of Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR), Denmark in India; who is the manufacturer of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) with a payload of 200kg (500kg tow load). An AMR is a type of Collaborative Robot which works on the principle of having its path mapped in such a way that it can reach its destination without any help from an external source. In case the primary path is inaccessible, it is intelligent enough to use alternative paths to reach its destination as well.
“Alstrut has been focussing on material handling and we have been doing a lot of conveying, handling automation for different kinds of automation industries; specifically Auto Components, Discrete Manufacturing, FMCG, Pharmaceutical; we mainly work with packaged products. Meanwhile a gradual progression of growth in technology is Robotics which is also a part of material handling. However, Alstrut has not gotten into normal Robotics application; we specialize in a particular class of robot called the Collaborative Robots”. Says Mr. Bihani
He further adds, “They are different from the traditional industrial robots where the industrial robot is meant to work in a caged environment because if a person comes in close proximity with it, it can knock off the person and potentially be fatal or injurious to the person.”
Alstrut’s design approach includes:
- Design for Assembly:
Alstrut components, products and solutions are built around the theory of Design for Assembly (DFA). Products are designed keeping in mind easiness of assembly, resulting in lesser time to assemble, quick turnaround and reduced assembly costs.
- Design for Manufacturing:
Design for Manufacturing or DFM is the key principle based on which all components are designed; ensuring ease of manufacturing, thereby reducing design time and optimized utilization of material and cutback on manufacturing costs.
- Design for Flexibility:
With the decreased product lifecycle of consumer products and new products being launched much faster, there is a need to change layout of existing assembly lines. Alstrut designs and builds solutions keeping in mind the changing needs of the customer, ensuring the ability to make changes to existing lines, which minimal additional investments.
- Design for Aesthetics:
Aesthetic is the sensitivity of the mind and how our brains infer something as being beautiful. Aesthetic is one of the key design concepts emphasized by Alstrut, thereby ensuring a functionally, visually and ergonomically attractive product, making the workplace brighter and enhancing the employee commitment.
Mr. Bihani believes that Alstrut’s company tagline “Possibilities Unlimited” holds true in more ways than one.” It is basically up to the person’s imagination and creativity of handling the product and ensure how it is moulded.”
The industry has moved from manual fabrication to comprehensive automation. Regardless, automation technology is available, while skilled labour increasingly is not. The leap has been a large one, with massive reductions in labour and huge increases in output, and technology will continue to drive the industry forward. Some structural fabricators continue to move closer to full automation, while others remain manual in many respects.
You can reach Anuj, Tel: +91 44 4294 9000 or Email: info@alstrut.com