Daman- Bombay- Pune
Sascha continues to give us his fantastic insight into ‘iglidur on tour’:
From customer to customer, from the desert near Puskar to the seashore at Daman. We have already covered about 1700km from north to south. It seems that every 100km I do, the food is changing and it is becoming quite common for me to not know what I am actually eating (I don’t really mind thou as long as everyone else is having it and it tastes good…. Which believe me it does!!) There is such a huge variety of food which means that every day I’m trying something new (at least this is my impression). Along with the food, language changes every few hundred kilometres are also obvious. Even my colleague from Delhi is not able to understand the locals a few hundred kilometres further south. As we made our way south the fauna and climate too clearly changed. Firstly, “dryer” (makes sense, as we were getting closer to the desert) and then it turned tropical. Palms were spreading out of the ground and the entire environment turned green.
As I write this, I am on the way to visit a customer in Pune. Pune is the automotive hub of India as well as one of the main educational centres. The University of Pune has the second largest number of colleges in India, 811 in total! YES 811! (times of India). If you trust Wikipedia then we are talking about almost 500.000 students. In comparison, entire Germany has about approximately 2.500.000 students (2012/2013)! Pune is in particularly famous for engineering, which is going hand in hand with that major automobile manufacturer such as Mercedes, Tata, VW etc. who have plants here (by the way, I will recommend Mercedes to launch our car model in India. So many people asked us about the price of the car and that they would like to buy it. I have the impression that we are kind of trend setters. Soon everyone will have a small, orange car.)
Ok, now to my last days. Let me show you again one customer who was also part of our Ahmedabad route. The company is called PWS. They have been existing for 100 years. With about 100 employees they are a mid size company. Nevertheless, they are leading the Indian market in the manufacturing of ice/cup filling machines. Once you leave Ahmedabad and take a road to the outskirts of the city you can find them next to a five star wellness resort. At the first glance you wouldn’t expect to find out that they are a high-tech company due to the first impressions of the factory being a bit old and run-down.
As they are working in the nutrition industry they require products that are corrosion free. Of course, in this industry, machines need to be cleaned regularly. Thus, they need products that are furthermore resistant to washing chemicals.
We are supplying them with jum liner in steel housing that are used for linear applications. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then check the following page where you can information on igus linear bearings: http://bit.ly/1nSBIkx)
Our jum liners have fulfilled the requirements of being corrosion free and resistant to chemicals. Moreover, they have additional advantages as they are easy to assemble and maintenance free so completely suit the needs of this customers application:
Mr. Nishit, director of PWS, gives us an insite into his experience of using igus parts:
In our case the jum liners enable the smooth up and down motion for putting lids on cups.
From Ahmedabad we took a highway to Daman. In total, it was just about 400km but it took ages. We were stuck in traffic which resulted in us arriving a lot later than initially anticipated at the sea. For me it was a big step on our tour. It kind of marked that we made the half way point as the further route leads us again away from the coast. The next day was a Sunday. Thus, no customers, which means that we could spend some time making videos and pictures with iglidur®.
At the beach, we split off to find an interesting place where we could shoot some photos.
When I came back to my colleagues, I was facing a strange scene. One of our drivers had the glorious idea to park his vehicle (by the way, this “innovas” are very big cars) not on the street but ON THE SAND. How can you get a car that weights tons out of sand? Well, for sure only with united forces.
Eventually, after several attempts, we made it! We could free our piloting vehicle and to continue our journey.
Next stop was Bombay. The way was leading us through stunning landscapes. A modern highway that is leading through a mix of steppe and tropical jungle with mountains in the background and traditional villages next to the road. Just, awesome.
I feel that personally we arrived in Bombay too fast. Most Europeans just know Bombay out of the famous Bollywood movie “Slum Dog Millionaire”. I had no time to explore the city which I wanted to do. We arrived late at night and had to leave for Pune already the following day, but on the first glance it seemed to be a booming metropolis with very modern buildings and skyscrapers. On every corner construction work is going on. I discovered later on that Bombay is actually the economically strongest city and the financial hub of India.
I’m writing this post in Pune. Tomorrow, we will drive the entire way to Bangalore (800km) which will mark the end of our journey. From there we just will visit Chennai and then come back.
As usual, I will keep you guys up to date,
yours Sascha.
