Leading global manufacturers of equipment for rubber, cable and compounding industry, Troester has predicted a bright future for the Indian cable market. The company looks at becoming part of India’s growth story. In a recent interaction with Wire & Cable India magazine, Mr. Thomas Holzer, CEO, Troester, shared his experience on becoming the new CEO of the company, his vision and plans for the Indian market. Mr. Raul Friedrich, General Manager of Cable and Compounding Division (X-Compound GmbH), Troester Group, shared his views on the Indian market and their future plans.
Wire & Cable India: Please walk us through the business journey of Troester, its major milestones and crucial achievements.
Raul Friedrich: We are a 132-year-old company, which has been providing system solutions to its customers with its long experience and focused know-how. Headquartered in Hanover, Germany, Troester GmbH & Company KG stands for engineered cutting-edge technology. We are the leading global manufacturer of equipment for the cable, plastic compounding and rubber industry. Today, the family-owned company employs around 650 people at global locations in Germany, China, US, India, Mexico and Switzerland. Troester believes in progressing through traditional ways.
“Establishing Troester in Chennai, India last year was a really good step and a clear commitment.“
WCI: What are the recent developments taking place in industry and how is Troester contributing to the changes?
RF: We see a lot of changes coming up in the energy sector. We are moving towards green energy as the alternative energy option. This energy transition will lead to a big demand for power cables in the future. For this, we have developed new machines and new processes. The process especially has to be adapted and this kept us busy in the last few years. One thing which is really important is the high productivity of our lines and reliability of our equipment.
Because of the green transition, there will be increased demand for submarine cables, which has brought new challenges in the past and will continue to do so in future because the length to be produced at once is not comparable with the land cables. The next important development is XLPE DC cables because they are all around the world, especially in Europe at this moment. There’s the North South Link and the South West Link. It means the corridors for energy distribution are coming from the North, from the offshore wind parks.
WCI: How do you help cable manufacturers in getting the best efficiencies from their manufacturing processes?
RF: We have just now introduced our first process support unit. It’s a new SCADA system with extensive support functions. We call it TRIDAS- Troester, intelligent data acquisition and supervision. In the future, it will display the operation and more information in a very easy way. With this product, we have increased the process support. This is very important because we have this feeling that this is going to be the game changer, the game-winning service.
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WCI: Please share your future plans.
RF: What we have learnt till now is that local on site support service is very important. We have big demand from all around the world with customers saying that they want on site service, process support and training. This is what we have been working on in the past and will continue to do in future by establishing new companies. Two years ago, we established Troester in Mexico, a big service unit to provide customers with all kinds of process and PLC support. Last year, we also set up a big base in Chennai, India. We are still developing further with service. At this moment, our focus is on servicing our equipment because our footprint in India luckily gets bigger and bigger.
WCI: What is your USP which makes you different from your peers in the market?
RF: I believe we have excellent technology and very good machines. We have a very close relationship with our customers. We don’t see them as customers, but as partners. We give our very best support to them. This is our clear strategy and vision also to enhance our presence with support services because we have a feeling that this is what the market demands. A customer who has placed an order with us, does not go anywhere. If we have done one project with a client, we will never lose him. We believe in having partnership and all around the world, we have strategic partners because we believe that the best development is having a valued customer.
“My vision is building on the strong base we have, our strong customer relationships, which we have for a long time, and digitizing our world a bit more.”
WCI: Please share your thoughts about the Indian market and your Indian presence.
RF: India is really growing. We have a very good order situation in India. My personal opinion is that it’s going to develop even more and we are very happy about it because at this moment there’s a lot of investment. We have a good footprint, we have good partners here. We know it’s going to continue. It is definitely the market to be in. It is a very positive development and it’s going in a very tremendous way. We expect a lot of investment next year in India. I have a very positive feeling and I believe 100 percent that India is going to be a very important market for us. Establishing Troester in Chennai, India last year was a really good step and a clear commitment. It’s going to be a very good and growing market. Though it is still a challenging market, like other markets, it is going to be big in future.
WCI: How does it feel to be the new CEO of the company? What is your vision for the company?
Thomas Holzer: I feel humbled becoming the new CEO of the company and I want to continue the success path we are currently on and the trust placed on us. We are a more than 130-year-old company, which went through a lot of changes and has always been very robust. This is what we want to continue.
My vision is building on the strong base we have, our strong customer relationships, which we have for a long time, and digitizing our world a bit more.
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WCI: Please share your views on industry 4.0 and AI. How can these help the cable industry?
TH: We want to make our products easier to use, easier to maintain in the field and easier to operate. We want to give a platform to the operator, maybe on an iPhone, to make it easy for everybody to use and very intuitive. With AI, we want to use it in different fields. We want to use simple AI, for example for soft sensors, where algorithms are replacing hard sensors. We are also thinking of having learning algorithms to improve the uptime of our machines.
WCI: What are your views on the Indian market and the plans going forward.
TH: The Indian market is very very important for us. I went to Delhi in January and to Chennai, and it’s tremendously growing. You can really feel the change, you can feel the heartbeat in the cities of change and growth. We want to support this growth. We have an office in India now for one-and-a-half years. We have more than 20 people there. In the first step, we are now training those people to support our customers in the field as service engineers.
