| | OCTOBER 20228INDUSTRY INSIGHTSINNOVATIONS IN THE WIRES & CABLES INDUSTRY TO MEET THE CHANGING CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTSBy Anil Gupta, Founder & Chairman, KEI IndustriesAnil is dynamic leader and a rec-ognised name in the Indian cable and wire Industries, he is a firm believer of technology, his custom-er-centric approach blended with a fu-turistic vision has ensured the produc-tion of cable and wire products of the highest quality.In interaction with Industry Out-look, Anil shares his views on how the wires and cables industry is evolving currently and how is the industry in-novating to meet the changing require-ments of diverse industrial clients. Rising urbanization and growing infra-structure 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 oth-er 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 sig-nificantly year after year. With the ever-changing product pref-erences 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 ca-ble. Usually, the power cable specifica-tions remain constant but in the case of special cables such as instrumentation cables or specialty cables, which go into some systems, the demand speci-fications 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, ow-ing to their better fire safety and bet-ter 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 manu-facture or develop cables according to those specifications. The specifications often differ in terms of the properties of the insulation and outer sheath ma-terials, but the metals remain the same, there is not much difference in the met-al 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 compa-nies that help in separating the insu-lating and sheathing materials of the metal. Therefore, the metals are taken
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