We are living in exciting times when it comes to innovations in the food processing and manufacturing industry. During an interaction with Michelle Dennis; Mr. Naresh Kantoor, Managing Director of Enconsys Private Limited, elaborated more about how his company is effectively addressing industrial automation obstacles. Backed by a profoundly skilled team proficient in factory automation, mechatronics, mechanical design, robotics, and IoT innovations, Encon Systems possesses the capacity to adeptly tackle intricate automation hurdles spanning diverse industry sectors.
Q-1. First of all, welcome to the interview, Mr. Naresh Kantoor, we would like to start by asking you how you started the company and what was the idea behind starting this company.
We always felt that factory automation is something that is required by every industry. Sooner or later, the quality of products which in most cases is dependent on labour, and shortage of skilled labour, these two issues are going to bother the industry. So, keeping that in mind we started this unit in 2008 in Gurgaon and after that there has been no looking back and we have been gradually adding customers not only from the food industry but also from FMCG, Pharma, automotives, etc. We are happy to be associated in providing factory Automation solutions to companies like PepsiCo, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, ITC, Honda, Suzuki, Denso, Colgate and many more.
Q-2. Tell us more about the role of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in your industry.
We use a variety of Robots for our solutions, which include Industrial Robots, SCARA Robots, Cartesian Robots, Collaborative Robots etc. as per the project’s needs. Robots being a basic part of the solution, several other hardware and software are also required such as sensors, IoT devices, integration with other machines etc. Particularly where quick changeover for SKU is required, intelligence has to be built in software and hardware so that the system can adapt to the new requirement nearly on the fly. Further AI gives in lots of advantages in equipment maintenance and real-time reporting of productivity data.
Q-3. So, we’d like to know more about the machinery you have, do you use any technology from abroad or everything is from India itself?
We do all the integrations with 100% Indian know-how, but we do import some components from Europe and Japan. We provide all the integrated systems with our indigenous designs. We have supplied many solutions for end-of-line automation and start-of-line automation such as Cobot Palletizer, Automatic Case filling, sorting conveyors, etc. These machines are doing well in Food and FMCG companies.
Q-4. Are you present only in India or across the world?
At the moment we are serving across India and there have been inquiries coming in from ASEAN countries, South Asia, South Africa, USA. We are in the process of expanding into other countries soon.
Q-5. What are your future plans? Any new products?
We are adding more products to our portfolio. One of the exciting products is `Overhead Buffer Conveyors’ for temporary storage and retrieval based on the Japanese technology of `Karakuri’. This will offer a highly energy-efficient and very economical Automatic Storage and Retrieval System.