New Biz Models
IN the midst of the covid-19 lockdown, Siemens India, which makes turbines and turbo compressors, motors and generators, transformers and advanced medical imaging equipment, had to commission some machines in far-off locations. On normal days, its engineers would have flown to each site and got the machines up and running. With air, rail and road travel not possible due to the lockdown, it had to work remotely, using a technology that wasn’t the first choice of many of its clients until that moment. The Siemens engineers, sitting in their homes, looked at the digital imprint of the machine which was captured real time through a 3D-glass worn by a person at the site. Directions were given remotely, for example which wire needs to be connected where, just as the engineer would have done sitting inside the machine at the site.
Installation of these machines meant savings in travel costs and increase in efficiency. “You begin to realise through the experience of Covid that a lot can be done in a different way. There are new business models, there are new ways of working that are emerging because people could not physically go out,” says Sunil Mathur, CEO, Siemens India. The Mumbai-based company provides technology solutions for sustainable cities, smart grids, building technologies, mobility and power distribution.
