Basant Sharma, Vice President, DEP explains the different solutions and services from their portfolio.
What are the engineering services and solutions in the DEP portfolio?
We have 3 main offerings in the company. One is hardware product development. Where we develop our own product from scratch. One example of such product is engine In Cylinder Sensor and it’s available in market and what it does is you can mount it on an engine and it adds fuel efficiency.
We are getting ready to launch our E-scooter in India we are in the prototype stage and pretty soon it will be in the market. We also design products for our customers where they have the design and we convert that into a product.
Second offering is in the area of design and services. To come to us for weight optimizations, competitor analysis, design optimization. We have several engagements in terms of engineering services and we do this throughout the geography.
The third offering is our core offering we started our company back in 1998 with offering called engineering technology, we have our own software called Meshwork what it does is provides a platform to all the customers to design their products much faster and efficient. This software allows the designer to take any old design and work that into a new so they don’t have to start from starch. At the same time if you not meet the performance then you can do an analysis on the MeshWork software. With this Meshwork technology, you can save 40-60% time than a regular way of designing. These are the 3 offerings.
How does the Meshworks platform compete against PLM software and how is it integrated with CAD/CAM software?
It is kind PLM based software which you can integrate into any of design process or CAD process. When it comes to MeshWork with platform I talked about is one aspect where it is focusing on a design concept and optimizing it. There is also another aspect where you can build CAD inside MeshWork. We have complete interface between all the different CAD packages and MeshWork.
How effectively are you leveraging technologies like AR/VR in model morphing?
We are looking into this area, right now we have not gone into this AR kind of technology yet but we have future plans to penetrate in that area as well.
What is the business model for the engineering services – customized or templatized?
As I mentioned before we have our own product which is engine In Sensor and E-Scooter, so for those two products we are doing our own engineering. For In sensor, we are going till manufacturing and for E-Scooter we are going up to prototype and trying to sell the entire engineering to two wheeler companies in India. Customize solutions varies from customer to customer as for some customer we can go to the prototype stage for some we can do small volume production, so it all depends on the dynamic nature of the business.
What is the distribution model and the partner ecosystem you follow?
Both the In sensor and the E-scooter example we are trying to do direct sales we are trying to reach the customers directly in example of In sensor, we work with every OEM and engine makers and letting them know this technology exists. For E-scooters we are try to reach out to all the two wheeler companies and trying to convince them how our scooters are different. So basically driving value engagement coming from DEP on the sales process basically.
What will be the proportional contribution to the topline from different LBUs?
When the contribution from the service side is higher as we do a big country project like full design and development the dollar amount is pretty high with those projects. As my opinion 60% is coming from software and 40% is coming from the engineering services.
How do you ensure the security aspect especially in terms of the sensors?
When it comes to the sensors it’s a bit different from the other sensors, but as we are working with many OEM’s and major engine makers they have their own cloud based systems.
What was the impact of the pandemic on your internal functioning and on your customers?
One of our services got seriously impacted. Talking about our services offering where we are working with many programs with the customers with the pandemic there has been a lot of cost constrains and cancellation of lot of programs, we also got affected because of that. When it comes to technology, since it is virtual that has not been affected so much.
On the sales side, we got affected as every customer is very cost sensitive.
On the software front, we have used this pandemic to upgrade our software add more innovation. So we are things opening up again and I am pretty sure that soon things will be in their pre-pandemic state.
How did you balance between retaining existing customers and acquiring new customers?
Adding new customer is a challenge as when you add new customers you had an opportunity to have a face to face interaction with them convince them about your products and unfortunately that is not there because of the pandemic. That has limited us from adding new customers. However, as we have very good customers they helped us by referring us to many of their contacts. That way we were still able to add some customers.
Strategy wise what we did we focused on penetrating the same customers by expending our area of services to them like if we are doing service for them we can do technology for them and vice-versa.
How did you manage to provide remote support and services?
Since it was done virtually it brought lot of challenges. We took some time to adapt to working remotely after working from their work stations but fortunately later on we got productivity out of it. We realize that people are more productive working from home we saw more efficiency. Even though there were challenges in communication as we could not have face to face interaction, but thanks to the video conferencing and app we slowly learned that and adapted to that and are doing very good.
What were the digital communication initiatives that you undertook?
We have Zoom meetings, Webex meetings. Being a service provider, we learned about many more portfolios like Microsoft Teams, Google. This is driven by customers some customers are comfortable with Microsoft teams, some with Zoom, so we adapt accordingly.
We were very flexible in using these applications, so that the customers can have a smooth interaction with us.
Can you explain the working of the Digital Twins concept?
Digital twin has many explanation and understanding, it is a mathematical or digital representation of an actual product. If you have a physical care or truck you can model the same virtually, analyse that virtually, and optimize that virtually. One can ask what’s so special about digital twin the answer is that earlier when this kind of work is being done that was very focused on certain assumptions. So every year thousands of care are being released and you can do testing for some of them so the assumptions are based on certain test samples. So based on one assumption you will get surprise on certain things when the vehicle rolls out. Now thanks to the developing technology every vehicle is connected and every road condition is sent back through IoT or AI techniques back to the server.
Now every vehicle that’s rolls out is a test sample for you.
Will VR technology change the assumption model altogether?
A lot is too be learned in the AR area. We know people are talking about it. I don’t see in near future in the next 5-10 years any kind of help coming from this area.
Other than automotive which are the verticals where DEP witnesses traction?
We have some other vertical like automotive, aerospace, consumer good, electronic, bio medical, oil and gas but majority of our customer base and revenue is in automotive. But we also have a very good presence in other verticals for example in bio-medicals we are helping customers we design and optimize their products. We help them to design all the implants and implement them.
Being in Michigan is the focus on automotive?
The owner of the company and the leadership belongs to the automotive industry and at one point we were part of GM’s crisis core, so that is the reason why we are in the Michigan area.
What are the geographical contributions coming from?
We are based in many geographies US, Europe, China, Japan, India, Far East and all and when it comes to offerings wise we have different offerings like in US all three offerings are well in line with our expectation with lot of our customer based in service area lot of them based in the software areas and in India also and to some extent in Japan also. In other geographies we are more towards software’s than services, so it depends on which geographies we are in. we have lot of global customers like Chrysler, GM, Ford who are present in many geographies so we work with them is all the geographies and help each other out.
Where are your manufacturing facilities and was it impacted by the pandemic?
We make volume manufacturing and we are very limited to small manufacturing, we work with lot of manufacturing partner’s especially in India and also in China as well. As we are not doing big volume manufacturing we are not seeing that impact from the pandemic.
What are the presence of DEP different offices worldwide?
We have an office in Michigan, we have design offices in India one in Chennai and Bangalore. We do all kind of design and consulting kind of work from our offices in Michigan and from India. Last year we have also started in Japan and China as well. Depending on the customers need sometimes in US they want cost effective solutions coming from India and China. So it’s dynamically driven by the customer’s requirement.
How do you ensure conformance with multiple compliance across different geographies?
In automotive area things are of a very global in nature and visible. If I am sitting in India I know all the requirements for US market, Europe market because things are every OEM and customers want to do cost saving they want to go to other geographies. Earlier there were challenges in understanding all the compliances from different geographies but that not the case anymore. This are straight forward all the requirements are available through public portal’s so it’s not a big deal any more.
What was the impact of the pandemic on the supply chain?
It has not impacted us as we are doing very small manufacturing. I have learned from many of our customers that they are waiting for materials for testing and prototypes, so we do see a impact on the supply chain due to the pandemic the parts were not available so that delayed their timing and all. So we got impacted as our customers got impacted.
What about the plans on deploying Digital Twins concept commercially?
Digital twin is evolving based on dynamic data and you can integrate that in design and engineering process and optimism that. So our plan is that we want to integrate our MeshWorks with our digital tune point going forward. The advantage from mesh works is that suppose you have a design and optimize that with a new data coming and dynamically so the advantage is you can literally parameterize your model. You can make any changes in the design and once you have data coming from the IoT methods you can get the data and feed it as a target. Now meshworks can allow to make those kind of tweak in the design in highly automated way to which you can meet the challenges coming from your IoT world to improve your products.
How will these parametrical changes working dynamically happen real time?
This features are already enable so all our customers have this features. Right now they are limited as the dynamic data is not available to them. Now, thanks to the IoT they can use the MeshWorks and put a constrain on the design. To do it dynamically everything is in the parametric domain once the test data comes to you can feed that and with a push of button, you can submit 1000’s of CAD models in clusters as each model is of different shape material constrains and you can optimize that.
How do you ensure the safety standards in testing in different markets?
You can put as many customization you want in the solutions. Suppose you have a vehicle which you are rolling out in the US market, so put the compliances of the US market and optimize the solution for US market. The same vehicle if you are rolling out in Europe, there is a different requirement so you can feed that for different market in different geographies.
What are DEP’s key differentiators from competitors?
We have a lot of innovation in our technology. When it comes to MeshWorks, I don’t think there is any other competitor who are closer to what we offer. There are other similar type of software’s but using them is difficult so we have many customers who have migrated from those software’s. Our software is very easy to learn, half a day’s training will be good enough for an engineer to learn and adapt it. Innovation and ease of use is what differentiate us.
What is the workforce involved in design and sales?
We are a growing company and we have 500+ employee worldwide out of which 40-45% of people are working for engineering. Around 20-25% are dedicated towards software solutions. And remaining are in various places like admin, HR, sales etc.
What are going to be DEP’s key focus areas for 2021?
These technologies are continuously evolving, every day we are learning about new technologies through AI, IoT and all. We have to continuously upgrade our product to basically interphase with these technologies. We know that in the automotive industry everyone is going to head for electrification, for those kind of needs we have to upgrade our capabilities so that down the next 5-10 years when every vehicle is a autonomous vehicle or electric vehicle hoe to cope up with that.
Are you looking at defense as a sector where some of the solutions are used?
We already provide solutions in the defense sectors, we work with aerospace but it’s not as strong as the automotive. We have quite a few customers for their defense vehicles and different aspects of defense like blast simulation, blast optimization. So what all their needs are we are supporting them with services or technology.
What are the services solutions and products that are focused for the Indian market?
Software wise we see a big market in India, as we have MeshWorks software which gives flexibility to the customers for model building, machine analysis or for optimization. Services wise also there is a big market as sooner or later India will also go for electrification. So whatever capabilities we have in US will also be needed in India too. So having these capabilities will help us in expanding in India.
What will be your message for the customers and the partners from DEP perspective?
The first and precise message is that, the worse is behind us, things are opening up thanks to all the vaccination and all the initiatives. We learned a lot in this pandemic how to work remotely how to be efficient. Even though it was a hard time for us it gave us a good learning. With this new learning, we can design our product better and better for the future.