Bangalore-based Elmeasure aims to partner the industry in making the world green. Striving towards excellence and product ingenuity has made the company a market leader in energy management solutions, to a wide range of industries and service segments. Mr D Janardhan, General Manager - Business Development, responds to the IPF Questionnaire elaborating upon the company's products and services and its current and future plans. An Electronics Engineer with two decades of industrial experience in manufacturing and customer support areas, he has worked with Naren Electrix and Enercon Systems before joining Elecon Measurements six years ago.

Energy management solutions are the speciality of Elmeasure. What are the products that you offer?

In every industry, there is wastage of energy, which can be saved. Depending upon the industry, saving of 5 to 20% is possible by adopting continuous measuring, monitoring, and recording of the electrical and process parameters.

ELNet is ELMeasure's Energy Management System (EMS), a very effective tool for energy savings and conservation. This system can be used in any organisation to achieve energy efficiency by implementing well laid out procedures and ensuring continual improvement, which will spread awareness of energy efficiency throughout the entire organisation.

The system will collect all desired critical electrical data like Voltage, Amps, Power factor, peak demands from multifunction meters networked in a multi drop scheme and throws up the opportunities for process improvement, to avoid power loss or wastages.

Our product profile includes basic single parameter measurement meter to multifunction meters, load managers, compact demand controllers with 4-relay output, DC measurement meters, etc. Most of the meters have options also to integrate process parameters and protection. To facilitate these, the meters come with the features of digital input, digital output, analog input, etc.

Other unique products are motor protection system, ELR with digital leakage current display, single phase preventer, voltage monitor, and power factor controllers, etc.

Energy and the green variant today has become a necessity for survival in industry. What are the recent trends in terms of products and applications?

ElMeasure has been practicing eco-friendly measures from the initial days. By using the latest MSPs we are not just giving our customers present technological advantage but able to bring down the component count substantially. We use lead free solder for assembling electronic components. Our packaging is of recyclable material.

Measurement of multi parameters with a single meter and multi channel measurements with a compact meter is the recent trend and sought after in the market. ElMeasure has strongly responded to such market needs.

Apart from own manufactured products you have also partnered with Elcontrol of Italy. What are the synergies between these two?

ElMeasure has partnered with Elcontrol of Italy for power analysers for energy auditing, power quality analysing, etc. This complements our range of products to give our Indian customers a larger spectrum of energy management solutions. ElMeasure has a strong technical team adequately trained on the products, its applications etc. We also provide after sales support to the Elcontrol products in India.

The customers today expect total solutions rather than merely buying products. How do you address this requirement?

Power is scarce and getting dearer every day and every user is forced to use it wisely. Effective utilisation of ElMeasure Energy Management system would benefit the customer greatly and will definitely result in cost savings. The technology, product features, reliability and support are the key factors user would look at, as the system needs to work 24x7.

The payback period is typically less than a year that is the attractive aspect. Thereafter the benefit is recurring and would add up to their profits. ElMeasure offers a complete solution to meet this requirement and many customers have benefitted from using our products.

What we designed 5 years ago is meeting today's requirements, as we have also started integrating gas and water into the electricity meter. Our electrical meter with digital input and analog input features can facilitate any such process integration with electrical parameters. Meters with digital output can protect the equipment against any electrical or mechanical abnormality. These are unique in India and we are the only one to provide an indigenously designed product.

Do you cater to the pan India market? How strong/effective is the after sales service?

We have presence across the nation. We have sales offices and dealer network across the country, and we also cater to Middle East, South East Asia market and our major export is to Japan. Reliability and after sales support are the two key aspects - even if you have a reliable product, customers need support. For reliability we use latest technology with SMD and reflow soldering, connector-less design wherever possible, lesser component count, etc. Customer requirements are varying in this era of IT and hence we have design platform built to facilitate ease of customisation. We have qualified and trained customer support personnel located at key locations across the country and we have also trained dealer engineers to offer better services to our customers.

Cost is always a consideration when going in for automation, and there are many wrong interpretations. Is this a major hindrance today?

India always had a wide gap in power generation and demand. The cost of power is getting expensive and every user is forced to utilise it wisely. Effective utilisation of ElMeasure Energy Management system would benefit the small, medium and large customers on the cost and energy savings. Though cost is a consideration, technology, product features, reliability and support are the key factors user would look at as the system need to work 24x7. As the payback period is typically less than a year that is the attractive aspect for any power user. Thereafter the benefit is recurring that would add up to their profits.

Competition in this field is global, and fierce. How do you maintain the market share in such a scenario?

ElMeasure has been regarded as technology leader in India with the strength of its innovative products using latest technology. It has benchmarked the best products available in the market and rolled out products many of them with the distinction of first in India. It has emerged as a preferred brand soon after its products launched in our country.

This advantage has also gained the recognition for us in the global market. In the South East Asia and Middle East countries we have made our presence felt with this background in a short time.

Today, Japan is our major exporting country, which I think reflects our position better. ElMeasure makes continuous effort to reach the latest technological advantages to our customers which is at par or better in comparison to any global product available in the market.

Any breakthrough product launch that made a difference?

ElMeasure has brought out many products, which were new concepts in India. For example, 4-channel DC energy meter, multi channel multifunction meter. The market was hungry for such products and they weren't available. These products gave technological advantage to the customer in bringing down cost, hassles of wiring complexity, saved precious panel space and simplified communication.

These products have caught the attention of customers of technologically advanced countries also.

How is the present business environment?

There is a widening gap between power generation and the demand in our country. Several plans of power generation projects have fallen short of the targets severing the problem further. Power is scarce and getting dearer every day and every user is forced to use it wisely. With India emerging as economic power in the world the power demand would go up in future.

The awareness for energy conservation is increasing in the business community. Hence our country has huge potential for energy conservation solutions and demand will remain intense for many years.

What are the future plans?

Sitting at this milestone, plans are being made for a future that seems to even amaze us at times. A growth strategy has been plotted for Elmeasure for the next five years. Vertical integration, acquisitions, product development, and new horizons in product offerings are part of the plan being designed for the future.

ElMeasure is planning to expand its manufacturing facilities in Bangalore. It has acquired one acre of land in Doddaballapur for this purpose. Our first manufacturing plant outside India would be operational in United Arab Emirates by mid 2011.

(Elecon Measurements Pvt Ltd, Bangalore. Tel: 080-32904489, 28461744. Telefax: 91-80-41272461. Email: contactblr@elmeasure.com )