With an history of more than four decades, at present, FIEM boasts of its nine manufacturing units: three in Hosur (Tamil Nadu), one each in Mysore (Karnataka), Nalagarh (Himachal Pradesh), Tapukara (Rajasthan), and one each in Kundli (Haryana) and Rai, Sonepat (Haryana) and latest one in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Along with auto components manufacturing, the facility in Rai and Tapukara are engaged in manufacturing LED lighting products for indoor and outdoor applications as well as Integrated Passenger Information System for Buses and Railways.
In the quest to know more on Fiem's portfolio for LED lighting products and its future endeavour, MGS Architecture met with Mr. S. Narayanan, Head–Commercial & International Operations. Having served more than two and half decades, he is one of the key members in the Company, and has witnessed Company's continuous growth and diversifications. Here're the excerpts:
Fiem is a well-established name in the automobiles segment. What made you to diversify in LED lighting for home and architecture?
In quest to our growth objectives and exploring new growth opportunities, from last 5-8 years we were seriously planning to get in to the diversification mode. We took the LED route wherein we have already taken two additional segments. The first segment is LED luminaires for indoor and outdoor applications including products such as LED bulbs, LED tube lights, streetlights, flood lights, bay lights, etc. The other segment is Integrated Passenger Information System with the LED Display for Railways, Metros and state transports like Buses, etc.
We chose LED Lighting because of our core competency in automotive lighting and more than 8 years' experience in automotive LED Lighting, which given us confidence to excel in this area, further it's the newest technology in the lighting industry and is still evolving each day thereby providing any newcomer ample space as well as scope to grow with the industry. Moreover, since the LED is also the most eco-friendly and economical lighting source in terms of power consumption, it can solve country's power woes up to a great extent and with this national objective of power saving, we just wanted to explore bright side of it for Fiem.
What synergies in LED lighting did you find for your existing business?
No doubt that automobiles and lighting are the two diverse tracks but again both the systems are meant for lighting. The difference between the two lines is that of distance in illumination area. We have 4 decades of experience and expertise in developing Automotive Lighting wherein the illumination range is up to 25 meters, whereas in the case of homes, architectures and other LED lighting the lighting illumination requirement is only about 5 meters and hence it is a very easy job for us to develop these LED Lights. We already had a very strong infrastructure ready in this regard owing to our thrust on lighting for automobiles. We have the unmatched capabilities for creating new designs in lighting fixtures, which is the core of LED lighting. Accordingly, to manufacture these products in our existing setup was absolutely feasible and we needed the infrastructure for capacity expansion only as we already have capabilities and expertise in Optical and Mechanical Design, Development, Testing and manufacturing, as needed.
It won't be wrong to mention that lighting is our domain area of core competency as we are the lighting people with specialisation in optics' designs, which is among best in the industry. Going forward, we are one of the first companies in India to initially put up a SMT plant to indigenously manufacture PCB assembly. Till date, we have developed around 150 odd products, and are readily serving any typical need of architectural and infrastructural lighting setup. It is because of our proficiency that we have got a huge order from EESL for supplying 70 lakh bulbs, part of which has already been delivered. We do have the order in-hand for streetlights worth Rs.100 crore. Further, we are planning to develop solar-based products for general lighting applications. We have also developed solar lantern.
Our automotive lighting capabilities are of world-class. The testimony of which is that we are supplying to renowned OEMs like Honda, Suzuki, Harley Davidson to count a few.
You put a lot of emphasis on design and development. Can you please shed some light on your design capabilities?
We have Government of India-recognised in-house R&D Unit comprising experienced designers to facilitate us with innovative products at regular intervals. We have people with more than 20 years of experience, engaged in designing and developing lighting products for Fiem. Besides, we have a design centre in Japan and a joint venture in Italy for that matter to keep ourselves updated on the global development in terms of new technology and design. Besides, we keep sending people to our overseas design centres to learn new technology and then apply the same here with perfection.
We had recently launched a new product viz., Emergency LED Bulb that gets charged automatically while being operational. It comes with an inbuilt battery to secure the power to back it up for about three hours in case there is a power failure, whereby there is no need for invertor. We have also developed Intelligent Smart Bulbs, which can be controlled by mobile phone by applying app on android and ios (Apple). It has more than one million colour combinations such as changing colour as per music and dance. All this is possible because of our unmatched expertise. We have been catering to the needs of various industries including hospitality, IT industry, healthcare, etc. We have supplied our LED lighting products to EESL. ITPO, ACMA, Amity Group of Institution, Rashtriya Chemicals, Hyatt Hotels and many other customers.
Where is the LED lighting heading?
LED is there because of their remarkable features that include long life, eco-friendly, and above all the aesthetic values that make them important from the point of view of the specifiers. LED is an area which is evolving too fast to predict the extent of innovation. What is today may be replaced by something more advanced and feature-rich substance tomorrow. We need to cope up with this changing pace of development to be updated on new technology to enable ourselves to meet the modern requirements. That is where our overseas design centres support us.
Apart from that, the push has been coming from the rapidly increasing knowledge among the end-consumers about the development in lighting arena especially due to the advent of LEDs. Many people have understood the advantages of LEDs, no doubt. Meanwhile, the government has also cleared its vision of replacing the energy guzzlers with the energy-efficient LED lighting, and has already issued the circulars to state to switch over to LEDs for street lighting. At the household level, the Government is distributing millions of bulbs under its energy-saving scheme (DELP). The result is already there in the form of tremendous saving on energy and money which otherwise was paid against the exorbitant bills.
What steps are you taking in that direction to spread awareness?
We do conduct various road shows. This is apart from actively participating in various trade shows. Besides, we are the sponsoring quite a few industry events organised by the associations like ELCINA and ELCOMA. In these gatherings of professionals, we do introduce the audience with our latest offerings and share with them what is next in Fiem's portfolio when it comes to technology and design. Apart from that, we actively promote it through trade magazines, newspapers, and also take help of other fast emerging mediums to reach to our potential customers.
Why should specifiers or other customers come to Fiem when they have other established options in the market place?
This is because Fiem is one of the Indian companies with 100% indigenous manufacturing base whereas most of others are more or less dependent on their respective vendors, mostly outside India. We too are dependent on overseas markets for a few components as for that like LED chips, there is no option but to import. We are also manufacturing LED drivers in house in order to ensure top quality of our products. Nevertheless, with such a strong infrastructure, we are capable of controlling our production, besides being capable of developing any product according to the requirement of our clients. We have got full support from our overseas design centres that keep us updated on any global trend thus help us develop innovative fixture designs. Together, this enables us to take control on quality, and hence pricing, which give us edge on other players in the industry.
Where do you get you products tested? Which all certifications do your products carry?
We have invested huge money on setting up testing facilities as we are also exporting to our global OEMs in overseas markets especially in Europe and Japan. We have got certifications not only for India but for quite a few markets across the globe. For instance, we have got AIS certification for India, CE certification for European markets, DoT for American markets, JIS for Japanese market, and going forward, we have even secured CCC-certification for China. This is an edge for us that we supply to the global suppliers. For all these, we have got such a well-equipped testing lab facility that any international Certification Agency can witness the testing at our accredited Lab.
How do you see the prospects of Fiem lighting viz-a-viz opportunities lying ahead?
We are readying ourselves to serve the requirements coming up with smart cities and other such opportunities. For that, we have continuously been making huge investment in R&D and also in capacity expansion to be well-equipped with future ready solutions to meet any level of future challenges.
As far as price-affordability is concerned, we have already shown it by supplying to EESL recently at such a low price which has become a benchmark for the industry. We have the advantage of working on edge owing to our strong in-house indigenous infrastructure that has made it possible for us to drastically bring down the prices to around Rs.72/- per bulb. We are supporting the Government of India's 'Make in India' initiative in true spirit.
