Your
products are used for 3D measurements, where exactly are these products used
and what are their purposes? Can you also give me some examples in automotive
and otherwise?
We have a wide range of products; our
best selling product is the FARO Arm series which has an integrated Laser scan
arm. The smaller version of the arm is called Gage; we have the Laser Tracker,
3D imager and the Laser scanner. We have divided our products into two main categories.
One range is what we call the Metrology range of products which is primarily in
measurements, which includes your Arms, like the Gage, Laser tracker and the 3D
imager. The Metrology product range is used for point to point inspection, and
for simple scanning and inspection needs. These are high precision and come in
different sizes depending how much space you have. Obviously a shorter arm has a higher accuracy
because with a longer arm you introduce more error into it. So it all depends
on what you need. The laser s tracker is similar to the arm, and also for point
to point measurements, but has a longer range.
Our Laser Tracker can go up to 110 meters, so is used heavily in the
ship building industry and even in machine tools where you need a long range.
The 3D imager is primarily used for reverse engineering. The other range of
products we call 3D documentation series which is used widely in the survey
industry, in architecture, mining where you need 3D laser scans.
Some of the key industries we cater to
besides the automotive industry are the Aerospace, ship building, metal
fabrication, mining, architecture, engineering and construction areas, forensic
and law enforcement and the energy sector.
How
versatile are your products?
It doesn’t really matter about the real
industry itself, actually it’s the factory, the production line and the process
is more important. What we do see is that regardless what the companies are
producing components parts for the automotive sector, or the aerospace
industry, or building parts for Harley Davidson, and so on, the processes are
very similar. Maybe the only difference is the amount of accuracy required
might be different, but apart from that the processes are the same. So whatever
has been developed for the auto component factory can be used for a motorcycle
factory. So that’s how simple it is and
the good thing is that Faro products are truly versatile. It can be used for
different applications. So you don’t need to buy one of our products for one
specific application, so we have a wide range of uses for one single product.
You can use it to measure the dimensions of a crankshaft or engine parts but
the next day you can move it to a motorcycle factory to measure your exhaust
tube it can be done. So that’s the utility we provide with our products,
Which
one of your products is the most popular choice in the automotive industry?
The Faro Arm is the most popular in the
automotive industry. The Faro Arm has been our flagship product for over 30
years and with automotive being the core industry it uses a lot of our arms. I
would say most of the major car companies in the world have a Faro Arm in their
facilities. These include Mercedes-Benz,
BMW, Porsche and Volkswagen in Europe. In the US we have General Motors, in
Asia we have Toyota, Honda, Maruti and Tata. They all have our products in
their factories.
Where
are your production facilities located and what operations are undertaken at a
regional office in India? How important is India as a market for your products,
especially the automotive industry?
Production wise we have plants in two
key locations, one in Europe and one in US depending on the product. All the
Arm products are made in the US and all the 3D documentation and scanning
products are made in Germany. The reason for doing that we want to keep the
production centralised so we can keep the quality of the product consistent.
In India we primarily have sales¸
marketing and servicing offices. We have two offices now in India, the main
office in Delhi and the 2nd office in Chennai. And besides having
sales office, we are also doing servicing work. So the products that we sell to
the customers, if they require to send them back for annual servicing it can be
done within the country, they don’t need to send it to Singapore or US so it
cuts down the down time for our customers. Besides that we have remote
engineers who work from home and are located all over India. So they are close
to most of our customers’ clusters so that these engineers can be onsite for
any emergency 24 hours.
Do
you have any plans to set up a manufacturing plant in India?
Not right now, as we want to keep the
product quality consistent, secondly we do take in a lot of inputs from our
customers and do future product development and we want to put in all our
effort into enhancing our products as much as possible. But it might change
depending on the business size. If our business in India grows big enough which
I think it will be soon, then why not?
Can
you briefly talk about one or two automobile companies which have bought your
products and directly benefitted by its use?
Within India itself we of course have
Maruti Suzuki, Eicher, Tata, and even Toyota in India. So these are the bigger
companies who we have helped reduce measurement time in the factory which in
turn helps in overall time and efficiency.