Interview with Sealmatic India

We want to be the preferred choice when it comes to mechanical seals with various customers and we want to make India proud with our little contribution in the process of making India truly a global powerhouse, says, Umar Balwa, Managing Director of Sealmatic India. 

What is your outlook on the mechanical seal industry? What are the major factors that are driving the growth of the mechanical seal industry? 

Over the years, the capabilities of Indian industry have improved dramatically and paved the way for induction of state-of-the-art technology in all the industrial fields, viz oil & gas, refinery, power, petrochemical, chemical, pharmaceutical, fertiliser, pump & paper, shipping, aerospace etc, thus this created a huge demand for high precision mechanical seals in India. Mechanical seals are designed to prevent the leakage of exotic and hazardous media into the environment, more and more strict legislation made it mandatory for industrial plants to employ mechanical seals for all their rotary equipment. Thus, creating demand for sophisticated mechanical seals for rotary equipment.

India is the most important market for Sealmatic. While 1/6th of the world’s population lives in India. The Indian industry is robust in its characteristic, matured and advanced. We are a 3 trillion economy and the vision of our honourable prime minister is to make it a 5 trillion economy in the coming years. This creates an opportunity for the pumps /mechanical seals industry to develop products and solutions for the process industry. In addition to this, the growth of the infrastructure sector has a direct impact on the pumps / mechanical seals industry.

What is your segment-wise revenue mix and how do you expect it to evolve over the next 2-3 years?  

Sealmatic’s major focus has been and will be the core sector such as oil & gas, refinery, power (nuclear & thermal), petrochemical, chemical and sophisticated offerings to marine, aerospace etc. Our revenue which is generated out of the above sectors is 70% and it will grow in the coming years due to the heavy investment envisaged or rather under execution of various projects in the country, say for example, IOCL is executing various expansion of their facilities across the country to the tune of Rs 1.25 lakh crore, one can imagine the demand it will create for mechanical seals in the next 3 years period.

What are your three main strategic objectives?    

I wish it was simple to state important objectives, but will attempt to answer the question. Most important is to create an indigenous behemoth in the field of mechanical seals, the second is to be a leading sealing technology player in critical applications of oil & gas, refinery, petrochemical etc and the most important is to create wealth and value for our shareholders and investors by consistently outperforming industry growth standards and delivering outstanding results through cutting edge technology.

What would you say are the key strengths of your company, and how do these strengths enable you to stand out in your industry? 

Customers in this industry have high expectations for dependability, application know-how, and swift after-sales and servicing. The mechanical seal sector is very competitive in terms of technology. Before serving a customer’s application, it is necessary to have a proven track record; hence, it is critical to developing a mechanical seal for a particular application. Every mechanical seal manufactured is custom-made to meet the specific needs of the customer.

Sealmatic is prepared, and it is the only domestic firm that has spent enormously in R&D, design, quality control, and production. It has a specialised staff of 26 engineers who are solely responsible for building customised solutions for customers worldwide. The team at Sealmatic is the only Indian mechanical seal company with API Q1, ATEX, RoHS, REACH and EU FDA certification for mechanical seals. Furthermore, as a domestic mechanical seal manufacturer, it is the only one that employs FEA and CFD for essential designing & development of mechanical seals. Our customers benefit from the massive data that we bring to the table in terms of application know-how, troubleshooting, and failure analysis based on over 32 years of expertise in this industry. This is the key to success in this highly competitive industry.

The future of Sealmatic and the Indian industry at large is bright and it is our rightful place to be at the forefront of the mechanical seal industry in the global arena. We already have deliveries to more than 45 countries, we want to be physically present with our sales and service centres on every continent.

We want to be the preferred choice when it comes to mechanical seals with various customers and we want to make India proud with our little contribution in the process of making India truly a global powerhouse.

We are continuously investing in highly trained manpower, best of the software and hardware and are imbibing the latest technology available to improve our designs and processes, in short, we are investing in the future.