Surface Treatment Equipments & Plants ( STEP ) Techno Solutions India, a leading manufacturer and supplier of various surface treatment plants is coming up with a new 5 acre campus which will be operational by 2025. With a high degree of automation, process control, and flexibility, they are upgrading their offerings as a turnkey solutions provider as compared to being an equipment manufacturer. In a recent interaction with Tube & Pipe India magazine, Mr. Varun Bhuta, Vice President – Business Development, STEP Techno Solutions India, talked about the company’s participation in the Tube Dusseldorf 2024, its recent developments, and future plans.
Theme of Participation & Product Showcase
At STEP, we believe that we are very fortunate to be present in this age of “India shining”. Especially after COVID-19, the world is looking towards India as a reliable sourcing partner. We are seeing a significant interest from foreign companies – especially from the Middle East, European, and Americas markets and are in touch with our associated Indian companies to export to the world.
We’re very excited to participate in Tube 2024 showcasing our new offering for the tube industry i.e. STEPsmart hot dip galvanizing plant. We design, engineer, and implement customized galvanizing plants for tube manufacturers as a value addition to their existing surface treatment process.
With the higher acceptance and use of G.I. pipes and tubes, we are seeing an increased interest in tube manufacturers wishing to set up hot dip galvanizing plants and as a turnkey manufacturer of hot dip galvanizing plants, we offer a single-window solution to tube manufacturers for a complete setup of pretreatment process tanks, high-velocity pulse fired furnace and recirculating dryers as well as pollution control equipment i.e. enclosures for acid pickling rooms and zinc fume, fume extraction systems and effluent treatment.
Recent Developments
We have recently collaborated with one of the world’s leading hot dip galvanizing companies- Kingfield Technologies and Equipment from Melbourne, Australia as their Indian partner to bring their furnace technology into India at a competitive price for the Indian industry. With over 75 galvanizing plants set by Kingfield across the world over the last 30 years, we are seeing a very positive response and interest on this front and are hopeful of setting up our first Kingfield-STEP hot dip galvanizing project by the end of 2024 in India.
Our STEPsmart Fume extraction systems, which are linked to the movement of the hoists/cranes in the pickling process, save 30-40 percent of the energy as compared to conventional fume extraction systems. We have observed that fume extraction systems running in the industry operate at a pre-set load continuously during the hours of operation irrespective of the actual demand. With the integration of the STEPsmart FE systems, now the control panel knows that the material is being lowered in the process tanks and the blowers automatically increase the suction volume. The system will power down and keep running at ~25 percent capacity after the material is lifted out of the tanks.
With this system in place, we can confidently say that the energy expenditure is now optimum as the system itself decides to increase or decrease the suction volume and lower RPM as per the need of the process. Our STEPsmart FE kit can be retrofitted to existing fume extraction systems and we are hoping to make a significant reduction in the total carbon footprint of tube industries.
Future Plans
Over the last 3 years, STEP has cemented its place in the Indian industries as a reliable partner for process tanks, acid storage tanks, and fume extraction systems. Thanks to the demand from a few of our oldest customers, we are upgrading our offerings to the industry as a turnkey solutions provider as compared to being an equipment manufacturer. With this thought in mind, our first offering to the surface treatment industry is turnkey hot dip galvanizing plants. STEP’s first executed hot dip galvanizing plant will be operational at our customer’s factory near New Delhi which would be averaging 2500 tonnes per month G.I. throughput.
The next target of our solutions portfolio is turnkey electroplating plants. We currently have very capable design, engineering, automation, project management, fabrication & assembly capabilities in-house, but to improve our offering to the various surface treatment industries, we are looking to collaborate with process experts as well as material handling systems manufacturers.
Additionally, we have started work on a new 5-acre campus for STEP which would integrate all our fabrication, manufacturing, assembly, R&D, and office operations within a single roof. The new facility will be a net zero facility with surplus power, water, and carbon capture than our consumption. We should be operational at our new campus around 2025.
USPs
At STEP, we constantly strive to work towards implementing solutions that are wishlists of our customers. The focus of our annual review meetings with our key customers is an open discussion/brainstorming session on what we can do to either lower costs, increase efficiency or remove their pain points. It is from such brainstorming sessions which at best take 3 hours to our longest meeting which took almost 3 days – that we came up with ideas of jointless tanks, STEPsmart FE systems, and now, turnkey plant solutions.
We have a diverse range of offerings for our customers, underscoring our commitment to customer satisfaction. Our offerings include hot dip galvanizing plants, anodizing plants, electroplating plants, pickling plants, phosphating plants, and powder coating plants.
Market Footprint & Clientele
We prefer to refer to our customers as our growth partners. As a 5-year-old company, we have around 75 Indian growth partners spread across the length and breadth of the country and 5 foreign growth partners.
The tube industry is, and will remain to be one of our biggest focus areas but we also have wire manufacturers, general galvanizers, electroplaters as well as anodizers among our clientele for metal surface treatment industries. We also cater to chemical, pharmaceutical, agrochemical, etc. manufacturing industries as well as water management companies working in water, sewage, and effluent treatment.
Visit Stand: Hall 1 / A39-01 at Tube Dusseldorf
