Nimesh Chinoy, Marketing Director – SigmaWeld, Electronics Devices Worldwide Pvt Ltd believes welding automation helps in managing costs and will continue to play a vital role in a competitive market.

In the current economic scenario what are the market opportunities for your products in India?
Electronics Devices Worldwide Pvt Ltd (EDWPL) research and development team continuously innovates, develops and introduces new products in the market at regular intervals.

SigmaWeld Pre Weld Post Weld induction heaters are well received across the country in pipeline industry and power sector. PRO Series of Welding Power Sources with synergic, pulse and double pulse modes with 100 per cent duty cycle are working with railways and process equipment manufacturers etc. SigmaWeldWeldWeb IOT Monitoring products are popular with power Sectors and other export oriented industries. Recently, we have introduced SigmaWeld SWAT Mode Power Sources (Accelerated TIG Welding) for high speed TIG welding where no edge preparation is required.

SigmaWeld  ALEX Power Sources which are 100 per cent duty cycle machines with our cold wire feeder and hot wire TIG are used for continuous TIG welding, cladding and overlay jobs in industries like, process equipments, heavy engineering, defence and aerospace etc.

What are the innovative products you offer for the construction and infra segment?
SigmaWeld Pro series is well placed to cater to the growing needs of the material handling, earth moving equipment manufacturers and cross country pipeline etc. There is a good growth in the oil and gas pipeline sector and we have excellent products to cater to the stringent means needs of ARC welding, MIG welding and pre-heating using our Sigma Weld PWHT machines.

Special functions in the Pro series such as root, control short circuit, pulse, dual pulse and many more help to achieve good clean repeated welds with excellent penetration and spatter free appearance. All standard SigmaWeld Indy series for ARC welding and MIG welding is robust for shop floor and site applications.

In a timeline when a number of processes are getting automated, what will be the role of automation in the welding sector?
In view of increase in labour cost, most of the industries are planning to adopt welding automation with a view to manage costs. Automation will play a vital role in welding as a growing need and competitive market. People want to produce faster, better and at a lower cost. Our SigmaWeld Automation teams, both design and execution focuses on increasing productivity, improving quality and reducing overall cost for the end users.

In nuclear defence and aerospace applications the materials used are exotic and difficult to weld manually. Sometimes the approach to the weld joint is simply not feasible to be executed  by a human as the joints are not visible to the welder. In all such places automated welding ensures increased productivity, reduces rework and ensures a lot of cost saving.

Another challenge the welding industry is facing is that the new generation does not want to become welders as the skill is not attractive to the new generation. Automation processes such as SPM and robots make the process more appealing as the welder becomes upskilled to an operator and his job becomes much easier.

When it comes to the adoption of innovative welding techniques, how does the Indian market fare?The Indian metal working industry has broadly three categories. First SME’s of Indian origin supplying to the Indian market they have full control over their decision but cost of solution should be viable for them to adapt. Low cost automation makes handling or process easy and are largely adopted as positioners, rotators and manipulators. When they are supplying to critical applications such as defence and aerospace they do not mind adapting new technologies of automation which help them and ensure right quality first time. In world over new and innovative Welding technology is fast accepted by the market whereas in Indian market the customers are very cost conscious  and migration to innovative welding technology is a very slow process. However, with increasing export market one segment of customer is very quality conscious where adaption of innovative welding technology and products is much faster.