Synco Industries Limited, an ISO 9001: 2000 certified company, has been successfully meeting the abrasive blasting and peening requirements of various industries. Having mastered the science and art of abrasive blasting and peening, the company offers premium quality range of equipment used for various surface cleaning/preparation purposes. Mr Tribhuvan Raj Bhandari, Managing Director, Synco Industries Limited, talks about the company, its products and achievements in this Interview. Excerpts:

What are the products that you offer?

We specialise in providing customised solutions in surface preparation by way of conceptualising, manufacturing and supplying portable, cabinet and room type abrasive impact blasting machines. These machines are provided with integrated media and object handling facilities along with ventilation system, illumination, climate control arrangement, control panels including PLC controls, acoustic treatment, dust collection and fume extraction systems. The solutions are based on airless centrifugal mechanical wheel based blasting arrangement, as also air assisted, pressure, induction-suction, vacuum and wet blasting machines, or hybrid solutions for continuous or intermittent, automatic or manual blasting.

We also manufacture and supply customized paint booths, metal spray booths, climate control systems, ventilation systems, air pollution control systems etc. Our range includes gas/electric arc wire spray and powder spray guns and systems for metallizing/thermal spray coatings.

What are the applications?

We provide custom built solutions for almost all applications needing surface preparation for particular application. In some applications surface preparation is required before painting/powder coating, thermal spray coatings. Other applications include shot peening of gears, springs, turbine blades, shafts, etc; de-scaling/de-burring/de-rusting/coating removal/paint removal, mould cleaning and polishing of footwear, tyres, glass bottle moulds, die cleaning, etc. The technology finds extensive use in foundries, forge shops, and in manufacture of food processing equipment, power plants, oil industry, automobile, medical equipment manufacturing, surgical equipment manufacturing, syringes and needle manufacturing, orthopaedic implants manufacturing, stone industries, handicraft, cookware/utensil manufacturing, tyre industries, switchgear manufacturing, plastic deflashing, windmill manufacturing, transformer manufacturing, glass etching, stone engraving, construction industry, and generally, in all types of metal working fabrication industries like ship building, coach and wagon manufacturing, defense and aerospace industry, etc.

Why should the customer opt for these?

Abrasive impact blasting is environment friendly, safer and economical surface preparation process as compared to any other competing process. It ensures superior adhesion of overlay coat of paint/sprayed metal/ceramics/cermets. It is possible to automate the process and integrate it with other processes for continuous and voluminous production.

In some applications its use is inevitable like surface preparation before painting or metallizing to provide superior adhesion and bond strength. It is also used for aesthetic applications like glass, and stone etching, stone wash look to denims, silky matte finish to utensils, it is a critical process in certain medical equipment requiring clean and non reflective finish as also in defence and aerospace applications. The process and technology is versatile in nature with innumerable applications.

How strong/effective is the after sales service?

We have branch offices at Delhi, Vadodara, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and Hyderabad and agents in Punjab, Delhi, Kanpur, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Indore, Vizag and Chennai. We keep stock of spares at branch offices for prompt service to customers. Our service engineers are sent promptly for repair/maintenance of the machine after receipt of any customer complaint.

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

Cost of ownership is dependent on initial capital cost, day to day operational cost in terms of utility consumption and manpower required, cost of space required for housing the machine, and machine maintenance cost. Our strength lies in providing customised equipment designs to suit customer requirements and budget. So we can claim with some conviction that our machines would normally prove to be economical over the life cycle against similar equipment of other makes and designs. For example, our design of climate control system for a blast room of a premier defence shipyard has been unique as it saved almost 75% of power load and reduced capital cost significantly while not compromising with air quality and on the contrary improving the same by provisioning of a unique wet washing arrangement for circulating air.

What is the Company's history?

The history of our company is interesting. It was promoted in 1982 with the mandate to set-up a textile processing house. However, due to reasons beyond control it started with manufacturing of textile dyestuffs and auxiliary chemicals. In 1987 company branched out into manufacturing of edible 'Agmark' Grade 1 mustard oil and subsequently integrated the milling operation by setting up a solvent extraction plant for manufacturing of de-oiled meals and solvent extracted oil too. It continues to operate this business as oil division. However, the chemicals business was wound up; and in 1996 the company embarked upon setting up of a new division titled TST (Thermal Spray Technology) division, which has flowered into an important business division for the company.

What are the company's achievements?

We have developed a number of special tailor made machines specific to particular applications. Just a couple of examples here:

• A very specialised, handy portable vacuum blasting machine capable of abrasive impact blasting without spillage of abrasive media or causing dust pollution in the surrounding atmosphere working on pressure blasting principle and vacuum collection based on air ventury principle for vacuum creation and with stringent restriction on height, length, width and weight and being capable of entering submarine like holds through small entrances was developed for a shipyard as a prototype and proved and approved.
• Recently, a very handy portable vacuum-blasting machine based on a vacuum motor for engraving on stone has been developed for the first time in the country. This import substitute product has been developed for M/s Nikhil Trading Company, Bangalore. Such machines are currently imported from Italy.

Any breakthrough product launch that made a difference?

Recently, we have supplied for the first time in the country a climatically controlled paint cum blast cell to a premier Naval Ship Yard on a turnkey basis. This is a unique facility in which large ship segments are blast-cleaned and painted in the same cell in a controlled climatic atmosphere to eliminate possibility of corrosion setting in during the time gap between blasting and painting, as also to avoid movement of heavy objects from blast room to paint room. This is the greatest achievement of our company till date, as we were the only Indian company to technically qualify for the project in a global tender.

As a matter of fact our design of climate control system with 90% air recycling, saving huge capital and operational cost was unique in its approach and freshness and was approved by the customer, which resulted in a complete change in tender's technical specifications which were modified based on our inputs of design know-how and know-why. This forced the international players to fall in line with our design and arrange for 90% air recycling instead of single pass-through arrangement.

How is the present business environment?

Present business environment both at micro and macro levels is difficult, and dismal what with falling economic growth, falling rupee, negligible industrial growth, high interest rates, rising labour and energy cost, infrastructure bottlenecks, high transaction cost and business unfriendly and uncertain regulatory environment cluttered by multiplicity of laws, regulations and rules with lot of discretionary powers. Stagflation is staring us in the face with probably one foot already in the door. Unfortunately, good governance, which is an essential pre-requisite for business to grow and prosper, is terribly conspicuous by its absence.

What are the future plans?

The company wishes to emerge as a leader in its chosen field of operation by being customer focused and friendly and by investing in its human resources, research and development and manufacturing facilities.

(Synco Industries Limited, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Mobile: +91.98290-22258. Fax: 91-291-2742557. Email: info@synco.co.in)