With the invention of the wheel came the invention of universal joints, also known as general couplings. Without them the wheels wouldn’t have been moving the world over, progressing the wheel of human ingenuity, creativity, innovations, industrial inventions, scientific breakthroughs, engineering evolvement, and technological advancements.
Further evolution in coupling technology brought more flexibility of Flexible couplings, auto-mobility of a variety ofspecialized couplings, demand for higher speed couplings, more endurance of lighter weight, and resilient couplings having inbuilt safety, overload protection, and positioning accuracy, to tolerate high drive dynamics with precision and perfection of the recently developed Mechanical Power Transmission couplings.
Carrying on this evolutionary march, since 1985, today, National Engineering Company aka NENCO has emerged as the leader in the field of mechanical power transmission couplings. Under the certified Expert Trainer, and exemplary leadership of Dr JuzerHaideri, the CEO, team NENCO has the expertise to offer the most optimal drive line solution, either from the standard manufacturing program comprising of over two thousand plus design combinations or by manufacturing tailor-made couplings for specific applications. Dr Haideri says proudly,
“We Keep Things Moving…!”
According to him, since its inception, NENCO has specialized in the design, manufacture and marketing of a wide range of shaft couplings, precision servo couplings, miniature encoder couplings, Torque limiters, frictional shaft hub connections, shrink discs and allied power transmission products that connect two rotating shafts.
Dr Haideri informs, “Continuous research and development documented through patents with in-house test facilities have allowed us to develop a wide range of advanced products to transmit torque right from a minuscule 1Nm to a gigantic 1000 kNm, for diverse applications ranging from machine tools to test benches, packaging, automation, robotics, food processing, paper, steel, cement, earthmoving, material handling, nuclear, wind, thermal energy to just name a few. The fact that every other application NENCO does is customized to solve problem, or to offer a replace-in-place product speaks about our ingenious and innovative design capability to recommend a perfect solution to our reputed customers.”
Since 1993, in close co-operation with Mayr GmbH + Co KG, Germany, world leader in the field of high precision servo and industrial couplings, torque limiting and electromagnetic clutches and safety brakes, NENCO has been instrumental in perfectly tailoring the requirements and providing intensive application support for Mayr products in India.
As one of the most innovative engineering solution providers, NENCO has offered hundreds of cost-effective customized solutions integrating tailor-made Couplings with Mayr clutches for extruders, packaging machines, test benches, material handling, stacker reclaimers, rotary air locks, power generation and many more.
The Success Mantra
Speaking more about NENCO’s offerings and aspects that make it stand out in the cutthroat competition, Dr Haideri says, “Innovation and research have been our key to success.” In addition to computer software and CAD-CAM systems, NENCO has a fully equipped R&D centre with customized test benches that help determine parameters for selecting a coupling or a frictional locking device to establish the service life and operational stability of a product, as well as special validation tests for newly developed products. Certified with ISO-9001 since 2004, NENCO has the most modern CNC machines to produce parts with consistent accuracy. “A highly experienced design team, with stringent quality control, ensure that products are designed to conform to specifications,” he adds.
Dr Haideri has over 40 years of experience in the field of mechanical power transmission and is the country head for Mayr Germany since 1993. Innovation being his forte, he has been awarded a PhD for “Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship – Thinking Beyond Boxes” and holds several patents for improvements in the field of power transmission. Trained extensively in Germany, he has been certified by Mayr as an ‘Expert Trainer’. He has conducted several business workshops with leading colleges and business management institutes that include, Manipal University, Pune University, Alana Institute of Business Management, and has authored several articles, and presented technical papers at national, as well as international conferences.
Hard Work Equals Luck
The journey to the top is never a cakewalk. Dr Haideri says, “Every entrepreneur must know that success is not an accident. It is the result of a strong burning desire to achieve the impossible. It is this attitude that allows us to do what we want to. “Success is a matter of choice and not chance.” As Henry Ford has said, ‘the harder you work, the luckier you get,” so always say that you like to work half a day. Do not care if it is the first 12 hours or the second 12 hours.
Couplings are not simple hardware items that a system designer can just pick, and expect to work. With machines getting faster, more intelligent, more compact and more powerful, the coupling technology needs commensurate development with an optimal design for every application. With the EV era booming up, the prime mover speeds have now crossed 30000 RPM, which requires equally sophisticated coupling solutions with overload protection for development and testing.
For vibration-sensitive applications, a torsionally soft coupling needs to be designed with the right torsional stiffness to tune the system’s resonance out of the operating range. On the other hand, some applications, like a diesel engine coupled hydrostatic pump with a low mass moment of inertia need a torsionally stiff coupling to operate below the critical speeds by moving these critical speeds above the operating range, thus providing a drive free of resonance.
Servomotors and intelligent controls on the other hand have made substantial improvements in recent years. Lighter and more powerful motors with responsive electronic controls make the drive extremely dynamic and sensitive. Servo drives probably more than any other, have high requirements for drive elements to control the excitation frequencies while maintaining the torsional rigidity of the drive train for positioning accuracy. This calls for a backlash-free coupling with reasonably high stiffness for synchronous motion control.
The Most Innovative Dynamism
NENCO is the pioneer in India to offer a variety of elastomers, polyurethane materials and disc packs with varying stiffness to provide the exact damping coefficient demanded by the application. These products get validated by tests conducted on custom-designed house Test Benches to ascertain the dynamic characteristics of elastic materials. ‘Dynatest’ a unique test bench designed by NENCO was awarded the ‘Best Innovative’ Test Equipment by Forbes Marshal.
To improve the service life of the elastic material and thereby the life of the coupling, NENCO innovated a new generation of elastic spiders and drive elements that allow partial contact between the driver and the driven jaws at no load and 100% contact at nominal torque thereby resulting in less heat generation, and preventing hysteresis failure to provide an increased service life of the coupling.
NENCO has been the pioneer to develop frictional shaft hub locking technology in India since 1991 with a patent for improved designs. NENCO manufactures keyless shaft hub locking devices and shrink discs from Ø 6mm up to Ø 480mm shaft with 900kNm torque transmission capacity.
As per Dr Haideri, the three professional qualities that will reach you to great heights with the customers are, to be –
- ‘Customer Centric’
- ‘Customer Centric’ and
- ‘Customer Centric’
“Because at the end of the day, only Customer is the ‘Profit’, everything else is ‘Overhead.’ And ‘profit’ is not a bad word! But looking only at profit before quality and service are like putting the carriage before the horse. “This will also not move your business,” he insists.
Pioneer in Designing Intelligent Coupling
Being an experienced leader, Dr Haideri shares his opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies like AI and ML impacts the engineering solution space and how NENCO is adapting to the change. He says, “Clearly, computers have overtaken almost all the spheres of engineering. They rule the industrial sector as well and are spreading their branches to all the other sectors possible. As mechanical engineers, we must say – ‘there would be no AI or ML if there were no machines.”
“Mechanical engineering is literally needed in every industry and you need machines to bring those lines of code to real life! Mechanical engineering was born in 280 BC and is still alive, and will always be perpetual. One could have never imagined hardcore mechanical products like couplings, that simply mechanically connect and rotate two machines would also provide a scope to be intelligent enough to accommodate modern technology concerning AI and ML.”
NENCO with its innovative team pioneered to design the first ‘intelligent coupling’ with inbuilt torque measurement system as early as year 1995 on a test bench for hydraulic pumps accelerating the digital transformation that has today opened the gateway to key drivers for Industry 4.0, embedding smart and connected technologies into a mechanical coupling.
Recently NENCO designed a torque measurement coupling having 50000 Nm torque rating, for critical test bench application for an American conglomerate in the field of motors, servo motors, linear motion, defence and flight control systems. The coupling with integral Torque Measurement System enabled measurement and control of online torque through PLC. “We have today expanded on this program with our Mezurdisc series of couplings,” says Dr. Haideri.
According to him the current industry in India’s manufacturing sector is facing a major concern due to ‘lack of profit’ and ‘growth’, resulting from cutthroat competition. India has a meagre share of 18% of the GDP coming from the manufacturing sector as against China and Korea, whose manufacturing accounts for 32.6% of the GDP. The key to overcoming this challenge can be summarized only in two words:
Value Addition
This can be explained with a popular analogy of an ordinary block of iron that would cost only ₹100. Made into horseshoes its worth is probably ₹240, made into needles ₹50000, and made into balance springs for watches, it’s worth is ₹25,00,000. “Your own value will be decided by what you make of yourself. Innovation and research are the only two tools that can help you reach the top of the pyramid and drive your firm to great heights.”
While entrepreneurs in developed countries typically operate in a resource-rich environment, “Entrepreneurs in our country face scarcity of every possible kind.” This partly explains why a country like India spends only 0.8% of its GDP on R&D, (as compared to 3% in developed countries) with the share of the private sector being only 20% of this spending. The MSME entrepreneurs must understand that ‘scarcity is the mother of all inventions’ and therefore follow the principles of – ‘opportunity in diversity,’ ‘do more with less,’ and ‘keep it simple’ and yet continue innovation even if it is on ‘jugaad’ basis. This can be the key to their survival in a challenging environment.
The Future Leaders
In his advice, Dr Haideri says to every budding entrepreneur who aspires to venture into the engineering solution space, reframe the old maxim, ‘Half-empty’ glass as ‘Half-full’ in three simple ways. Look for opportunity in every adversity and reframe challenges as opportunities, by changing the lens through which you perceive the situation you face. Perceive and interpret the world differently from the rest. And see the glass as full even when everyone sees it as half empty! So make the constraints work for you and adapt to changing environments by improvising solutions to challenges.
NENCO has received several awards and accolades all throughout its journey since 1985 that includes
- Mayr award for ‘Best Global Partner,’
- ‘Mayr Overseas Sales Organization,’ and also other awards
- ‘Leaders of Tomorrow,’ by Ernst and Young, and
- ‘Most innovative Test Bench,’ by Forbes, amongst others.
“To sum it up, whether in life or on machines, ‘Good connections count.’ and at NENCO we develop connecting technologies through innovation. Ultimately, in Albert Einstein’s words, ‘Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage, to move in the opposite direction.’ Because even Kites fly against the wind. Not in the direction of the wind!” he concludes.
