Sagar Bhosale, Managing Director, Schmersal India Pvt. Ltd.

Turning workplaces into safer places

Schmersal India, established in 2007, started its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at MIDC, Ranjangaon, Pune in 2013 with almost 4,000 m2 of production and storage space. It manufactures safety systems and solutions for man -machine safety.

Schmersal has continuously expanded its production and business activities, steered by Sagar Bhosale, Managing Director and founding member. Under his leadership, Schmersal India has experienced exponential, double-digit sales growth, not only in products but also in services, which are now an integral part of the business. Schmersal India also expanded its sales activities in India—both by opening new sales offices and widening its network of distribution channels—to address new markets, increase geographical coverage, and improve knowledge and awareness of machine safety in India.

Schmersal plays a significant role in the application of IoT for predictive Maintenance – a widely adopted practice in various industries. The company collects machine data, transfers it to a gateway, and ultimately to the cloud. Its IoT team in India has developed an ecosystem where they collaborate with analytics experts and other partners to offer comprehensive solutions to customers. This includes providing analytics dashboards and developing web and mobile applications for convenient access to the data. Through a global Competency Center, Schmersal and its IT professionals contribute to developing these user-friendly applications that enhance the customer experience.

A decade of manufacturing plant in India

Says Dnyaneshwar Pangarkar, Head Operations: “This year we mark the completion of a decade of manufacturing plant in India. We have expanded capacity by adding new product lines with innovative technologies and high-end test equipment to ensure the quality of our products.”

In India Schmersal is producing electromechanical and solenoid interlock switches. It has 22 product lines, each with different variants depending on customer requirements. The company is planning to have many such product lines in the coming years.

Schmersal production plant focuses on the highest quality requirements, a wide range of variants, and shorter delivery times as the core elements. This brings flexibility as well as optimal control of the production process and the entire supply chain system which is based on the lean manufacturing philosophy. This enables the company to meet diverse regional requirements and regulations while upholding the highest safety and quality standards.

Steadfast consistency in production

Schmersal maintains consistency in its solutions regardless of the manufacturing location, be it India, Germany, Brazil, or China. All products undergo the same international approvals to ensure uniformity. The company implements stringent production processes, including the use of identical machines for manufacturing switches, guaranteeing consistent quality. Due to the nature of safety products, thorough testing is conducted on each switch, evaluating it against a minimum of 10 to 15 parameters before it is deemed ready for delivery. Schmersal prioritizes steadfast consistency throughout the entire production and testing processes to ensure reliability of their products.
An interesting fact is that Schmersal’s testing machines for switches are interconnected globally, enabling quality personnel in Germany to monitor the quality control processes and progress in India. This interconnected system allows for real-time monitoring and ensures maintaining consistent quality standards across different locations.

The company has a modern central warehouse from which it can distribute the goods across the country as well as the globe. The warehouse is operated via SAP R3 with extended warehouse management. All transactions and material movements are tracked through bar codes and scanners.

In-house R & D to develop innovative products

Manoj Babu, head of R & D at Schmersal India, says: “The R & D Department was established in 2015. Initially, the main purpose of setting up the R & D Centre was to develop products focusing on the Indian market. This makes Schmersal one of the very few global companies that have in- house R & D and manufacturing facilities in India for Man-Machine safety products”.

Innovative products are not enough to ensure a company’s success; rather, it is a matter of making sure that these innovations provide outstanding customer benefits. This is the reason why Schmersal R & D and Product Management collaborate closely with customers to co-develop the best possible solution; it is among the pivotal reasons why Schmersal has a very successful, long-term relationship with its customers.

“In the initial years, after setting up Schmersal R & D in India, we were focusing on safety product design and knowledge transfer from Schmersal Headquarters via Product transfer and localization of products. Through this organic growth, we can now design products for Local markets as well as for the whole Schmersal group globally,” notes Manoj Babu.

“Now Schmersal India is developing products for the elevator industry as per EN81 Standards, customized safety products for heavy-duty applications as per CE, UL, and CCC approvals, and products for Food & Pharma Industries (IP69K). Schmersal India has R & D teams for Electro-mechanical product design, Embedded software design and development for the on-going projects of Schmersal Germany, and Industry 4.0 solutions for customer application requirements. The design and development teams have undergone Functional Safety Certification (FSC) from TUV.
Schmersal India is also collaborating with other Schmersal subsidiaries from Germany, Brazil, and China to develop products and solutions that meet similar market requirements,” he elucidates.

One-stop-solution for a full product basket

Sagar Bhosale, Managing Director shares that through Schmersal’s unwavering commitment to customer-centricity, continuous innovation, and technology-driven solutions, the company envisions a safer tomorrow, protecting both workers and machines in the ever-evolving industrial landscape.

“Additionally, we see promising opportunities and advantages in India, such as finding better suppliers and more favourable regulations. It is a blend of factors that contribute to our decision-making process.