We are leading the way things can be done

By OEM Update Editorial August 2, 2021 2:31 pm IST

With the metal additive technologies, we see a greater functional designing of the machine tool components.

What kind of metal Joining technologies are gaining momentum in the industry?

Metal Joining could be having multiple applications in different avenues, we come from an additive manufacturing background and in that respect, I can answer this question. For us, there are 3 ways where joining metal is gaining momentum. In additive, joining metal is similar to forming of metal parts. First is the powder bed fusion, second is metal deposition which could be through laser, cold spray and different technologies. We believe that going forward in Aerospace this will become one of the leading contributors of critical component manufacturing.

India is largely dependent on imports for aircraft maintenance components and finer parts. In what manufacturing air-parts segments, the industry plans to go to Atmanirbhar as lockdown is gradually opening up?

The very critical element mentioned here is aircraft maintenance, because no matter where the aircraft or vehicle is made the maintenance has to happen locally and hence Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul (MRO) play a very important role in that. As advancements have been happening in technology, it is extremely important to use the most advanced tools for maintenance and as we represent digital manufacturing which includes 3D Scanning and 3D Printing, in maintenance any part that needs to be repaired also needs to be inspected and hence we believe scanning and printing are going to be revolutionary as you can have local manufacturing by deploying 3D Printers on sight opening up multiple opportunities.

When we consider the Indian scenario, the military aircrafts used here have a much longer life cycle, due to which there is an issue faced with the availability of the spare parts for the old fleet and also the inventory cost. The use of 3D Printers will help the aircraft maintenance industry to overcome challenges significantly and manufacture the spare parts locally in India.

What indigenous plans are in process to increase the demand for local manufacturing of parts and components for the aerospace industry?

During the last 4-6 years, Indian government has been encouraging local manufacturing of defence and aerospace parts and components. Many private players are setting up establishments for the same and additive manufacturing technology is going to play a very important role in manufacturing. Due to low volume and high complexity of the parts for the aerospace industry.

How is the role of CAD and CAM instrumental for machine tools market growth?

Advancement in the CAD CAM has played a very instrumental role in the growth of machine tool market, since the manual skills of machining the metal components are almost eliminated with the help of CAM software’s and a lot of standardisations of the processes irrespective of geographical area is possible due to the same. With the metal additive technologies, we see a greater functional designing of the machine tool components which will increase further the machine tool efficiency/ accuracy etc.

Additive manufacturing is the rising segment for its advantages. Where do you see your role in your scene?

We as a company have been promoting additive manufacturing for over 14 years and our belief is firm that there is no time better than today, as users are looking at different applications in different industries. We were fairly aware that this is a new industry a new segment and anything that is new needs validation and trial and hence SRT has indigenously set up one of the largest Customer Innovation Centre globally from the point of view of demonstrations. This is a place where customers can come with their ideas, concepts or problems and we try our best to use over 20 printers, 8 technologies and over 40 materials to support these varied applications and push the adoption and validation of additive manufacturing.

Additive manufacturing is becoming a standard manufacturing process and designers have started realising the enormous potential additive manufacturing can have in the future of manufacturing ahead. The more and more designers realise this completely the greater will be the adoption of additive manufacturing in the production arena. Additive manufacturing gives tremendous advantage of making very complex functional design aspect of the product, which was not possible with conventional manufacturing process. More and more such complex components are designed, keeping additive manufacturing process in mind, more and more growth of additive manufacturing will be seen.

Additive manufacturing of metal parts is an emerging trend that gives aerospace manufacturers the freedom to produce parts on-demand, which makes the supply chain more efficient. What scope do you see for it in the future?

The last 12 to 15 months have been a testament of the fact that agile manufacturing is going to gain more dominance, it means distributed manufacturing, it means able to change manufacturing workflows depending on the requirement and this remains our firm belief that efficient and agile supply chains would be possible. The adoption or outcome of an agile or more efficient supply chain will directly be dependent on the adoption of digital manufacturing solutions which include 3D Scanners, 3D Printers, CAD Design etc. and rightly so we feel that adoption is going to increase multi-fold in the next couple of years.

Additive manufacturing is also helping designers to reduce part weight and part counts by combining 3-4 functional parts together as well as by hollowing with different mesh geometries. Weight reduction and increasing functional performance using additive manufacturing is the biggest advantage Aerospace manufacturers are getting.

Do you expect increasing growth of the cutting tools market as of now though industry was impacted during pandemic times?

The conventional cutting tools and machine tools market will not grow due to the advent of additive manufacturing and these market growths will be slowly stabilised while the additive manufacturing of metal parts will dramatically take this market share.

With new and innovative concepts happening and taking place in the component market, in what ways do you intend to meet arising demands to be competitive and alive in the market?

With over 14 years of our existence, we have always tried to look 4 to 5 years ahead of time and plan our company strategies around it. We firmly believe that whatever is ahead we first own, demonstrate, convince and then sell. This is the unique DNA of SRT where we are not just bringing the technologies or partnerships but we are able to invest and demonstrate to our customers, which not only builds our knowledge and capabilities significantly but also gives customers time, lowers cost of trials and the conviction of what they really want to do. We believe we are not just a competitive ally but we are leading the way things can be done to drive higher adoption in our industry which is Additive Manufacturing.

SRT as a company has always led the way and has been bringing the latest state-of-the-art new & upcoming technologies to the Indian market, to be the most competitive in the market we always demonstrate by doing things ourselves first.