In an exclusive interaction at IMME 2022, Ultra Labs talks about their growth and investments made in the market.

Please brief us on your key offerings for oil testing in mining equipment.

Ultra Labs has been in the market since 2014. Earlier, customers needed to be made aware of oil analysis. Therefore, we had to go to the customers and let them know the importance of the service. Today, however, there has been a significant shift in mindset, and customers now view oil analysis as an investment rather than just a price measure. This is the largest shift in terms of the mentality that has been noticed.

While discussing the terms of the testing portions, there are few innovations or much change. Still, the fact that people are willing to do this kind of analysis in the mining industry is the most significant change and is very impactful for our market. Previously, we tested 200–250 samples from each customer, but today, the same customers provided us with more than 3000 samples. Thus, that is one of the largest swaps ever noted in the mining sector.

What are the advantages of continuous oil testing for OEM manufacturing?

It is a common question for our customers to know what benefits are from the oil analysis program. One of the most critical aspects of our product is that customers can entirely rely on it, as uptime is essential for the mining industry. There are no unexpected breakdowns with oil analysis, this is one of the significant benefits that our customers are experiencing today. Additionally, they can extend the drain oil intervals through continuous oil analysis programs, which also helps them bring down the cost.

This is like a pathology lab for the customer; they can monitor the health of each piece of equipment. So this becomes critical and crucial for taking maintenance decisions for our customers.

What kind of investments are you planning to make in this facility to add more oil testing engineers in the coming years?

Currently, the company has one laboratory based in Navi Mumbai. We thought about Navi Mumbai mainly because of the accessibility of the instruments servicing and availability of the chemicals. However, today, most of our samples come from the mining region, which is in the eastern region. It is always better to be closer to the customer. So, in the future, we intend to establish a few labs throughout the mining region, primarily in the east and south. But east is definitely on our radar for establishing a new oil analysis laboratory.

What kind of improvements is the R&D team making to obtain maximum efficiency?

We put more effort into accurately understanding the test results that correlate with the machine condition or human condition so that we can educate or make our clients aware of how to avoid major breakdowns, which is a direct loss to the product. Our young lab technicians are eager to learn new things, curious, and keen to learn. We continue to expand our facilities for testing fluids, including oils and other fluids. Based on the demands, we add instruments and evaluate our techniques to improve them. Additionally, we regularly educate our clientele.