Prime View Exclusive Interview With Umar Balwa – Managing Director Of Sealmatic
Prime View: Sealmatic is present in various industrial sealing applications, can you elaborate?
Sealmatic: As a sealing company, one has to be present in every gamut of rotary equipment, may it be a pump, compressor, or any kind of mixing & agitating equipment.
The applications are far and wide and sometimes we are very surprised to receive application for sealing an equipment of which we have not come across and these further surprises us after having spent more than 3 decades in this industry.
The major industries where our focus is oil & gas, refinery, petrochemical, chemical, power, pharmaceutical, fertiliser, pulp & marine, marine, aerospace and many more industrial applications.
Prime View: What are the major products produced at your plant in India and who are your important customers?
Sealmatic: We produce highly sophisticated mechanical seals for pumps, compressors or any kind of a rotary equipment which conveys any kind of media in any form such as liquid, gas etc.
Major customers in the core sector, to name a few, would be: RIL, IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, GAIL, NPC, NTPC etc. In the OEM segment we work with the biggest companies such as BHEL, KSB, Sulzer, Ebara, Kirloskar, Wilo, Andritz, ITT and many more.
Prime View: Can you tell some details on your production capacity?
Sealmatic: We have one of the largest manufacturing capacities in India, with a capacity to produce mechanical seals to the tune of Rs 200 crores annually.
Prime View: Do you export from your Mumbai plant?
Sealmatic: We are the largest exporter of mechanical seals from India, exporting to over 45 countries such as USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands etc.
In the segment of mechanical seals industry, we are the only company which has been recognised by the DGFT as a Star Export House, this is a big honour and distinction for Sealmatic.
We have a significant position in this market; our mechanical seals are sold to over 45 countries and are as well acknowledged as one of the industry’s leading brands.
Sealmatic delivers a whole package to its customers worldwide, from mechanical seal selection through installation and staff training at the end-user premises.
Prime View: What kind of market share are you looking at in the future?
Sealmatic: We are well placed with our infrastructure to fulfill our goals of becoming one of the top three mechanical seal company in India, we aim at achieving 15% market share in the coming years.
Prime View: Can you kindly take us through your journey in the field of mechanical seals?
Sealmatic: We are a global player in the business of sealing technology, committed to cutting edge solutions for the critical process industry, thus improving the quality of mean time between failures.
Mechanical seal is our business. We have deliveries to more than 45 countries across the globe.
Since 2011, when we started our business in India, we have grown and are now represented in more than 45 countries.
Over the years, there has been a very big vacuum in the market, it was totally dominated by the three big boys of the mechanical seals market, we wanted to change that and prove to the industry that there can be an indigenous manufacturer who is equally competent and can supply high end sealing solutions at competitive price.
Today we are approved by major companies such as IOCL, RIL, BPCL, HPCL, EIL, BHEL KSB, Sulzer, Ebara and many more.
Today besides the three big boys, Sealmatic is the only company which has the distinction of supplying mechanical seals as an OEM for 660 MW super critical thermal power plants.
Today, we are well known as one of the top sealing technology company globally.
Prime View: How do you fulfill customer’s expectations?
Sealmatic: The major expectations of customers in this field are reliability, application know how and quick after sales & service.
The mechanical seal industry is highly competitive technically, it demands a proven track record while one serves for a customer’s application, hence know how to design a mechanical seal for a particular application is of paramount importance.
Every mechanical seal produced is tailor made to suit individual requirements of the customers.
We are well equipped and rather the only domestic company which has invested huge amounts in R & D, Designing, Quality Control & Production, we are the only mechanical seal company in the MSME segment which has been recognised by the DSIR – Department Of Science & Industrial Research under the Ministry Of Science & Technology.
Prime View: Please tell us about the innovation that Sealmatic would like to bring to the table in the mechanical seals industry?
Sealmatic: As previously said, the business of mechanical seals necessitates application know- As mentioned earlier, the business of mechanical seals entails application know how, which comes through various years one serves in this technically competitive industry, we have devoted over 32 years in this high-octane business.
This requires out of the box thinking in providing solutions for very difficult and complex sealing applications. Our specialty lies in designing and providing heavy duty mechanical seals for pumps, compressors, agitators and other rotary equipments. Applications where the pressure rating exceeds 100 kg/cm2, temperatures in excess of 350 degree Celsius, slurry content of very high level, media with high viscosity and so on.
Over the years we have designed and developed niche products to meet the above demanding applications, which are not only difficult to design and produce, but equally challenging to install a suitable mechanical seal in the rotary equipment with such applications.
This has been achieved from the rich data bank that we have assimilated in the last 32 years, which allows us to match such demanding application to the work that we have done in the past, plus we employ best of the raw materials, which are imported from Germany, USA and the UK, we do not compromise on the metallurgy.
Prime View: Barring few companies, most of the mechanical seals companies fall in the MSME category, what in your opinion, are the major challenges that the MSMEs continue to face, despite the numerous initiatives?
Sealmatic: The Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) sector is a significant stakeholder in the Prime minister’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat and building a $5 Trillion economy.
Recently we have seen growth in the MSME sector because of various initiatives taken by the Government of India and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Liquidity has been injected and interest rates are cut which have reduced the burden on MSMEs. MSMEs are the foundation of India’s economic growth and account for at least 30 per cent of the country’s GDP.
At the same time, they are extremely diverse, ranging from highly advanced operations to a simple entity managed by a microentrepreneur.
Furthermore, the sector employs nearly a 100 million people, making it the second largest source of employment in the country after agriculture. Thus, the development of this sector is critical to India’s future.