| Dinesh Sadasivan |
What are the market opportunities for Ion Exchange Services Limited (IESL) in India?
Supply of spares and consumables, annual maintenance contracts, operation and maintenance contracts as well as upgradation for water treatment plants are the business opportunities for IESL in this country. Depending on the requirement, be it US Pharmacopeia Grade or water for injection grade, the right treatment scheme is designed and supplied by our parent company, Ion Exchange India.
The treated water required by the pharma industries is of such critical quality that the plant requires high level of monitoring continuously by personnel with process and instrumentation expertise. High end technologies such as post ultrafiltration plants, short cycle automatic demineralising plants, “Swift” and Reverse Osmosis – Electro deionisation (RO – EDI) systems form part of the treatment schemes. Since they have high degree of automation and instrumentation and expensive spare components and membranes, they require focussed attention in operation and maintenance; obviously, customers look for prompt and quality service and the same are offered by IESL. The opportunities in waste water related areas however, are limited.
How critical is water management in the pharma industry?
Application of water is extremely crucial and critical. The very technology that caters to water treatment in the pharma sector is unique and specialised. Documentation and validation procedures can be handled effectively by only a branded company with good expertise. After sales, services in the pharma industry is also an important criteria as there is no margin for errors. Quality norms that are followed here are of the highest orders. Pharma is a very unique sector, which is expected to be consistent in quality and standards.
What percentage of your revenue comes from the pharma industry? Who are your clients from the pharma sector?
About 15 per cent of revenue comes from the pharma industry for IESL. We want to serve multi-location clients. We have just signed a annual maintenance contract with Cipla for nine locations. Multi location concept works as it helps to provide uniform service to same brand in different locations. Our pharma clients include Dr Reddy’s Labs, Shantha Biotech, Wockhardt, Cipla, Johnson and Johnson, Gland Pharma and so on.
Tell us about your remote monitoring services.
In remote monitoring, as the name suggests, equipment can be placed anywhere. However critical parameters of this equipment would be controlled from the central cell in Bangalore. We are using SIM-based technology for data transfer. Live plant operation parameters would be seen on the screen in Bangalore. Any variation in the parameters can be detected with remote monitoring. This technology helps in corrective form of maintenance instead of going for the damage control later. It doesn’t add much to the cost. Technology of monitoring is not very high but the damage prevention with it is enormous.
Please explain us the concept of PLATUNUM ANNUAL MAINTENANCE
We have developed PLATINUM ANNUAL MAINTENANCE package for catering to this segment which looks for high end attention. Closer to the clusters, Mumbai, Gujarat, Pune, Aurangabad, Hyderabad and selective areas in the northern part of the country, we have housed service engineers who are also backed by instrumentation and automation team since the plants are with high end automation as mentioned above. We also organise, as part of enhancement of brand image, ‘Loyal Customer meet’ and ‘Knowledge Forum’, mainly comprising customers of this segment, periodically at strategic locations to update on the products and services offered by us and our parent company.