Very few companies last three generations. The luck of the genes seems to be with the Hirlekars in that sense. And also a sense of being with the times. The Senior Hirlekar, the 1st generation, started manufacturing spring movements for dials. His son, our contemporary, Annirudha of COEP 83 batch, pivoted the business to magnetic coupled differential pressure gauges. And his sons are now looking at making the move to piezoelectric gauges.

But let’s start with Annirudha’s achievements. His 1.5 acre factory at Ramtekdi industrial area commands a global 18 percent market share in mechanical differential pressure gauges. Now before we move on any furtther, readers may be wondering what is all the gauge fuss about. In any process plant, there is equipment which obstructs the flow of fluid. One example of such equipment is filters. The plant crew needs to know about when they need to change the filter. This can be done by measuring the pressure drop across the filter. If the drop is beyond a certain value, it’s time for a filter change. Another application area is tank level measurement. The pressure of the liquid column gives you an estimate of the level. This requires more accurate gauges, with accuracy of 1% instead of the usual 2%. Here is an excerpt from the company website about how this pressure drop is measured.

High and Low pressure areas are separated by a diaphragm. The difference in pressure causes the diaphragm to move. A magnet is rotated by this linear movement of the diaphragm. A pointer attached to this magnet indicates the differential pressure on the dial. 

One thing that has helped Hirlekar Precision scale up is the ease of installation and service. Annirudha is proud of the fact that in his 50 strong workforce, there is not a single installation or service technician. But the bigger secret of this Mittelstand kind of world dominance is the use of a white label strategy. Hirlekar Precision has more than 50 customers in 54 countries. The meters are labelled with customer brands. Annirudha talks of his early days when during a visit to Singapore, a customer advised him to change his brand. (I am reminded of our friend Haveli Ram transiting to Havell’s.) Annirudh decided then that it was much easier to borrow brands than to create one. He has been working relentlessly on customer brand satisfaction since then. Today it takes just 24 hours from the time of receipt of the order to shipping. 

Manufacturing involves two major steps. Machining the gauge body is the first step. Most of the time the body is made of SS, Bronze, etc because it has to be non magnetic. (At times, plastics are also used.) The machining is done on Vertical Machining centers. There is a fair amount of automation involved in scheduling and tool management in these machines. The next step is assembly, which is mostly done by woman power. 

The next gen Hirlekars, who have studied in Germany and US, must be thanked for kaizens which have helped improve the customer responsiveness. Earlier the dials were sent to screen printers after calibration. This was the slowest part of the process – and the committed time those days was a week. But then an investment was made in high end color printers, which were capable of printing out dials, with logos et al, on aluminium directly, using UV stabilised inks. What took days is now done in minutes. And in keeping with the Hirlekar fetish of reliability, the company has gone ahead and purchased a second printer. The utilisation is very low – each printer gets used only for a couple of hours a day, but a printer breakdown can impact delivery commitments, hence the second printer.

In future, with more IoT based electronic gauges coming in, the dials may die a natural death. But the Hirlekars are prepared. My only wish is that they continue to be the great employers that they have always been – and don’t succumb to the lure of job reducing automated assembly lines. And yes, I hope that they diversify into at least one more area. If not anything, then to ensure that there are clear battlefields on which the two sons continue their battles for world dominance. My suggestion would be magnets. They are currently importing a lot of that from China – and it would be great to see them exporting it back in the years to come. Here is the company website: https://www.hirlekarprecision.com/en/