In an exclusive interaction with Wire & Cable India, Mr. Dieter Gerger, Sales Manager, Windak Group, shares that India is a key market for the company, witnessing a clear shift from manual to fully automated machinery. He adds that Windak, with its advanced coiling, spooling, and rewinding machines, delivers end-to-end cable packaging solutions, while continuously monitoring quality to ensure that premium, market-ready cables reach end customers.
Wire & Cable India: Please briefly outline your company’s cable and wire industry product focus, including key technologies, product types, and principal end-use sectors.
Dieter Gerger: The Windak Group brings every cable manufacturer’s brand into focus. The first impression is a visual one—shaped by the packaging that protects and presents the cable’s true value. For sales and marketing managers, packaging is a strategic tool, central to how a product is perceived in the market. Windak turns these strategies into reality, offering fully automated solutions tailored to exceed every packaging requirement with precision, efficiency, and impact.
WCI: Within your core product segments, how would you characterise current demand conditions and order visibility?
DG: The demand in our core product segments remains very strong, despite weak economic growth in Europe. Windak’s core competencies are coiling, spooling, and rewinding. In recent years, these areas have seen a clear trend toward more sustainable packaging solutions, such as carton packaging, reduced plastic usage, and recycled plastics. Windak has aligned with this trend and offers efficient machinery solutions to support these requirements.
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WCI: Within your manufacturing offerings, how do you currently assess investment sentiment among wire and cable producers, particularly in emerging markets such as India?
DG: We are seeing a shift from manual to fully automated machines. Unlike manual equipment, which depends on human operation, automated solutions offer higher efficiency and faster return on investment, making them increasingly attractive, even in emerging markets like India.
WCI: Which customer or application requirements are currently exerting the greatest pressure to improve productivity and quality within your product range?
DG: On one hand, rapid and strong growth can no longer be managed with manual machines. On the other, fully automated machines provide continuous quality control, ensuring that only premium-quality cables reach the end customer. Finally, meeting this demand requires highly efficient and powerful machinery, which Windak is able to provide.
WCI: Which manufacturing disciplines, automation measures, or quality-assurance practices have delivered the most tangible improvements in your yield or rework reduction?
DG: Windak machines continuously monitor the quality of the cable during packaging. Any defect is detected before it reaches the packaging stage, ensuring that faulty products are removed early in the production process. This requires a sophisticated system designed to minimize cable waste while discarding defective sections. To address this, Windak has developed “Intelligent Scrap Handling”, which reduces scrap length and allows remaining, already packaged cable to be market-ready in shorter lengths.
WCI: How are sustainability and decarbonisation goals translating into practical changes at your company?
DG: Windak has long focused on reducing CO₂ emissions. This commitment has been implemented across several production processes as well as in office operations. Windak machines are equipped with high-efficiency motors, and a LEAN production approach has been adopted to minimize waste and energy consumption.
WCI: How are cost pressures across raw materials, energy, or logistics being managed without compromising product reliability or compliance?
DG: At Windak, quality, reliability and durability are non-negotiable priorities. To manage cost pressures from raw materials, energy, and logistics without compromising these standards, we rely on long-term supplier partnerships that provide transparent cost structures. This approach allows us to absorb or pass on costs to customers in a fair and controlled manner, ensuring consistent product performance and compliance.
WCI: How has the wire and cable industry benefited, in practical terms, from automation or real-time digital control?
DG: Automation in the wire and cable industry has transformed production by reducing human intervention and the errors that naturally occur. This leads to higher output, lower scrap rates, and consistently improved product quality for customers. Preventive maintenance further enhances efficiency, as machines can detect early signs of issues and automatically take corrective action, minimizing downtime and maximizing availability. The result is a clear win on every front—efficiency, quality, reliability, and overall operational performance.
WCI: Looking ahead three to five years, which wire & cable segments or applications are most likely to drive the next investment cycle?
DG: We see significant growth in house wiring, driven by the rapid expansion of cities and the resulting demand for new homes and apartments. Another fast-growing market is data cables, fueled by the widespread adoption of AI. AI requires extensive data centers, which in turn drives demand for data cabling. Therefore, we expect the next investment cycle to focus on both power cables and data cables.
WCI: How do you see India as a market?
DG: India is a rapidly growing market across all sectors, but the increasing demand can no longer be met with manual machines. Expanding infrastructure, data centers, and new living spaces for the rapidly growing population are essential. This makes India a very important market for Windak, and we aim to contribute by enabling this growth efficiently, without compromising quality or performance.
