| | NOVEMBER 20228INDUSTRY INSIGHTSINNOVATIONS IN THE WIRES & CABLES INDUSTRY TO MEET THE CHANGING CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTSRising urbanization and growing infrastructure worldwide are creating a surge in demand for wires and cables. How do you see the wire and cable industry developing currently? In an emerging economy like India, where there is huge scope for growth in the construction and infrastructure sector and increasing demand for real estate and other infrastructures such as hotels, hospitals, and residential houses, the demand for the wire and cable industry is also increasing to a great extent. While we know that other projects such as railways, metros, power transmission & distribution, and power generation have been there for quite some decades, the demand for wire and cables is robust, especially in India, and it will continue to grow significantly year after year. With the ever-changing product preferences of the clients, staying on par with the changing demand pattern has been a major challenge for the cable and wire industry. How is the cable and wire industry innovating to meet the changing requirements of different industrial clients? The changing needs of the wire and cable industry are due to the changing specifications of the end uses of the cable. Usually, the power cable specifications remain constant but in the case of special cables such as instrumentation cables or specialty cables, which go into some systems, the demand specifications change. The pattern in the construction industry is changing now as the trend is towards using flame retardant low smoke and halogen power cables or low smoke zero halogen products, owing to their better fire safety and better fire-resistant properties. The other changes are mainly due to the end user specifications that include solar cables for solar power or cables used in wind power, thermal power station, oil & gas project, or petrochemical project. Therefore, the project specifications are usually prepared by the electrical consultants and the project developers and the cable industry has to manufacture or develop cables according to those specifications. The specifications often differ in terms of the properties of the insulation and outer sheath materials, but the metals remain the same, there is not much difference in the metal specifications. In order to reuse the metals from cables and wires, burning the outer layer becomes necessary. This in turn leads to the emission of pollutants like brominated and chlorinated dioxins as well as carcinogens into the environment. How is the wire and cable industry solving this issue? At present, the trends have changed and today cables are not burned to take out the metal for recycling. There are machines developed by companies that help in separating the insulating and sheathing materials of the metal. Therefore, the metals are taken out separately and the insulating and sheathing materials are taken out separately. Furthermore, these insulating and sheathing materials Anil Gupta, CMD - KEI Industries, in interaction with Industry Outlook, shares his views on how the wires and cables industry is evolving currently and how is the industry innovating to meet the changing requirements of diverse industrial clients.
< Page 7 | Page 9 >