Trio Motion Technology India is a leading automation provider in the packaging industry, enabling machine builders and factories to become ready for the future with its innovative and high-performance solutions. In an interview with The Packman, Dharini Joshi, director, finance and technology, Trio Motion Technology India, speaks about the company’s strategic priorities, challenges and growth plans, and how Trio Motion Technology is leveraging AI for key industries in India.
Mahan Hazarika: Please tell us in brief about your company.
Dharini Joshi: Packaging is a vital enabler supporting consumer purchasing decisions. The diverse, over USD 1 trillion packaging industry, is expected to influence major trends, namely eCommerce, changing consumer preferences, sustainability, and digitization. Trio Motion Technology has over three decades of experience with motion control technology. Today, it is a leading automation provider in the packaging industry, enabling machine builders and factories to become ready for the future with its innovative and high-performance solutions.
The company, headquartered in Gloucestershire, UK acts as a primary Research and Development Centre. In 2017, Trio was acquired by the Estun Automation Group. Since its acquisition, the company is experiencing year-on-year growth of over 15%. Trio’s expertise in motion programming is based on its Motion-iX technology. Its motion coordinators are able to control up to 128 axes of the servo, stepper, piezo motors as well as hydraulic systems.
Our range of Motion Coordinators, Expansion Modules, I/O Modules, Servo Drive Systems, and HMIs are designed to enable the control of industrial machines with a minimum of external components. With our extensive, modular, and scalable product portfolio, machine builders can build a control system capable of driving a multi-axis machine and all its auxiliary equipment. Trio offers a complete machine solution.
Mahan Hazarika: What are the top three strategic priorities of Trio Motion Technology currently for the Indian market?
Dharini Joshi: As per reports, the Indian packaging industry is anticipated to register a CAGR of 26.7% from 2020 to 2025 and reach USD 204.81 billion by 2025. With Indian machine builders competing globally and India becoming a key exporter of packaging material in the global market, machine builders now focus on providing machines and lines with best-in-class technology, higher quality, and performance that are cost-effective.
Trio Motion Technology, since its inception, has placed its trust in performance, quality, and integration. We are in a prime position to support our customers with next-generation products and technology coupled with our expertise in India. We focus on providing our customers with the application, technical support, and service locally, helping them reduce their time to market and stay ahead of their competition. We prioritize strengthening our Research & Development facility in Pune, India.
Mahan Hazarika: What are some big challenges faced by you in India, and what are the growth plans that may be needed to be addressed?
Dharini Joshi: Many global automation vendors depend on technologies and solutions made in the western world and delivered to Indian customers. However, with our expertise, we see that many solutions are an outcome of the challenges faced by global machine builders and factories. Indian machine builders and factories have a slightly different challenge. Thus, the technologies and solutions made for the western world might not be the best fit for our Indian customers.
We have been observers of such a trend since our inception in India. All our efforts have been to provide local application and technology support that has been a catalyst in our growth story. We intend to strengthen our application and customer support teams further. Additionally, we also intend to support our Indian customers by strengthening our Research & Development facility in our Trio Motion Technology office in Pune, India. We are sure this will help us strengthen our position in the Indian market.
Motion programming is a critical area, and at Trio, we strive to make complex motion programming easy. The Motion-iX programming language is a powerful suite of instructions and tools developed over 24 years. It makes even the most advanced motion programming easy and provides ease of programming for many complex applications. Multitasking and subroutine capabilities allow users to create modular programs, ideal for code reuse and better readability, thus saving valuable time.
Mahan Hazarika: What are your scopes of adapting and keeping up with gradually shifting automation trends?
Dharini Joshi: Integration, multi-protocol support for seamless integration, and a complete solution provider approach have gained prominence in the packaging industry. With our new robot range, we are able to provide machine builders with a fully integrated control solution. It gives machine builders high-performance robot control, motion control, and machine automation in a single controller. Trio’s new robot range will speed up development time and increase reliability for machine applications that require robotic integration.
As our solutions support many factory communication protocols, we ensure that our systems communicate with other factory automation equipment. This enables factories in data acquisition and leverages the digital revolution. Integrating robot, motion, and machine automation into a single controller enables faster development for the OEM. Crucially, it reduces field downtime for their customers, increasing productivity for machine users. Minimizing development and maintenance challenges, combined with using just one controller for all tasks, also means a lower-cost machine.
Mahan Hazarika: Please share some broad strokes on how Trio Motion Technology is leveraging AI for key industries in India.
Dharini Joshi: Artificial intelligence has been discussed in the industrial automation segment for some time. Machine builders are already working to incorporate artificial intelligence algorithms in their machines. These algorithms can be easily integrated with our motion control systems and help in orientation and path planning. We work closely with our customers in the packaging, warehousing, and robotic automation segment to enable them to leverage the power of AI in automation with our control solutions.
With our PC-MCAT-2 solution, customers can implement any AI, Machine Learning (ML) algorithm on the PC and run the motion applications on the Real-time operating system core on the same industrial PC. It has the capability to run 64 axes with seamless data exchange between the GPOS and the RTOS. Together with our solutions, our customers can leverage the true power of AI and ML algorithms on an integrated automation system in a single industrial PC. Thus, this opens up limitless possibilities for our customers in any industry segment.
Mahan Hazarika: How do you envisage your company changing the industry in the coming years?
Dharini Joshi: Trio Motion Technology is a well-known innovative company providing a slew of products, solutions, and technologies for the packaging industry. We continue to contribute trend-setting technologies to the machine being offered by our customers.
However, as a company, we genuinely focus on sustainability with our production and manufacturing to reduce the carbon footprint. Additionally, with our solutions, our customers can reduce waste and machine cycle times. They benefit from reduced energy usage and become more profitable.
