Electronic Relays (I) Pvt Ltd (ERI) is a specialist manufacturer of Solid State Relays. Established in 1978, the company began its journey by exporting a major part of its production to the United States. Over the years, it has continued to work on its growth chart adding new products to the range. The long experience and expertise in switching has been utilised by leading Indian manufacturers to develop oil warning and ignition systems to exacting standards of Honda Engineering, a leading global manufacturer of portable generators and supplying them in large volumes since the two years.

ERI has well-equipped manufacturing facilities to handle discreet device assembly and surface mount devices (SMD). Located in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, the company manufactures its well-received products within the confines of the rigorous guidelines that it has set for itself. At present, the state-of-art facility can manufacture 500,000 relays per shift on dedicated product lines, establishing strict adherence to customer specific requirements.

The company has in-house design and development teams to understand customer specific requirements, designing products meeting international standards with very low design cycle times. Known to be innovators in SSRs, making them very inexpensive, the company has arrangements with prestigious national and international test houses for any special testing that acts as an extended ERI test facility.Mr Madhav R Badsheshi, DGM-Business Development, responded to the IPF Questionnaire seeking information about the company's products and services. Excerpts:

What are the products that you offer?

ERI offers Solid State Relays and Input/Output Modules and also custom designed products for the switching applications. The company also produces ignition units, and oil warning units for the portable generators.

What are the applications?

Mainly, ERI products are meant for industrial applications such as Process control equipment, Industrial lighting, Industrial heating, Motor control, Industrial Automation, Traffic signals, etc.

Why should the customer opt for these?

Solid State Switching devices are better compared to the conventional switching devices such as Contactors or the Electromagnetic relays with several proven advantages. They are faster in switching, save energy and time, boast of high reliability and are very dependable. The downtime is very low. All these are attributes one is ideally looking for when making a choice.

How strong/effective is the after sales service?

Generally, no after sales service is required for these products. We have a countrywide network of dealers and distributors, besides the large export market. We provide the necessary technical support to help the users.

How does the cost of ownership over the life cycle compare with competition?

ERI is known for its Quality. Most of the products are UL approved and hence third party verification is assured.

Parts used are of good quality and sourced from approved suppliers.

In-house testing gives 200% confidence to the users. ERI exports 50% of its production and all the products are rated very good as far as the quality is concerned. What is the company's history?

Launched in 1978, the company is today ISO 9001: 2008 certified with the manufacturing activities located at the company's own premises, with state-of-the-art facility for manufacturing relays and an EOU catering to the exports market. The company belongs to the Ganjam Group.

What are the company's achievements?

ERI is the first company in this field to get the UL approvals. Along the way, the company has bagged several export awards.

We are also the first SSR manufacturing company to get CCC approval for export to China. Above all, the company has an excellent track record with OEM businesses/ customers.

Any breakthrough product launch that made a difference?

We have successfully launched the SSR DIN series in 30 mm and 22.5 mm and 17.5 mm base for which ERI is rightly very proud.

How is the present business environment?

Well, it is ok, but can be better. The domestic market is sliding and the recovery is predicted only after about 3 months. The rising dollar cost is discouraging, eating away at the margins. The situation needs to be reversed to overcome these down turns.

What are the future plans?

Expand on the exports front by twofold and improve sales in the domestic markets. We have plans to launch new products in the years 2012 and 2013.