The series of FPSI meetings held in Bengaluru for the fluid power fraternity comprising hydraulic, pneumatic and mechatronic industries, discussed and deliberated the key market trends and industry initiatives. A report...

The Fluid Power Society of India (FPSI) organised a series of events in Bengaluru in June 2019 which included the CEO Conclave, Fluid Power Technical Seminar 2019, and Fluid Power Professionals' Day 2019, apart from a Training Program and Curriculum Interaction. The CEO Conclave 2019 was an informal get-together of CEOs, CXOs, and senior management personnel from the fluid power fraternity. The forum opened up an opportunity for a free exchange of ideas and thoughts, the current status and the future outlook of the fluid power industry as influenced by the industrial hydraulics, mobile hydraulics, pneumatics and other sectors.

Speaking on the occasion, Udayant Malhoutra, CEO and Managing Director, Dynamatic Technologies, shared his thoughts on "Creating an Indian MNC in the Fluid Power Industry". Dynamatic Technologies has successfully acquired overseas companies, integrated them well into its systems and deriving huge synergies. This was followed by an exposition by Ramesh BV, Managing Director, Bosch Rexroth on "Global Fluid Power Scenario and Prospects". He articulated the new trends and R&D approach considered within Bosch Rexroth for smart hydraulic systems.

A panel discussion among the group of industry stalwarts gathered was also conducted on the topic of "Moving up the Value Chain by developing New Technologies". The panel comprised Hemanth Kumar, Seethapathy Rao, A K Kamam, Rashmikanth Joshi and KK Rangan. Arvind from FPSI steered the panel discussion with valuable outcome for the fluid power industries and action items to FPSI.

Fluid Power Technical Seminar - FPTS 2019 The fourth edition of technical seminar FPTS 2019 was organised by FPSI in Bengaluru on June 18 and19, 2019. Udayant Malhoutra was the Chief Guest and he addressed the gathering on Future trends in fluid power technology. He emphasised the Make in India concept adopted by Dynamatic. He shared how Dynamatics transitioned from a small company to a major supplier of hi-tech products to the aerospace and defence industry.

Dr Medhat Khalil, Director, Professional Education, Milwaukee School of Engineering, USA was the Guest of Honour and delivered the keynote address on FPTS theme, "Future Trends in Fluid Power Technology". He addressed the various aspects of fluid power starting from components, systems, validation and application of fluid power. Hemanth Kumar, President, Fluid Power Society of India gave an account of the growth of the Society over the last four decades and how it fulfils the objective of disseminating fluid power knowledge. He also gave a brief of the events happening across the world and the series of events planned during and after the two-day seminar. He also touched upon the global fluid power scenario.

A curtain raiser was presented by Srinivas Guttikar, Member, Technical Committee. The theme of FPTS 2019 was "Future Trends of Fluid Power Technology". It gave an opportunity to renew contacts and discuss problems of mutual interest with keynote speakers, authors and delegates from different companies from across the globe. The inaugural session was themed with "Smart Hydraulics System". The papers presented on future trends in smart hydraulics by Bosch Rexroth, Parker Hannifin, Manuli Hydraulics and Walvoil Fluid Power India attracted all the attendees. The second session in the afternoon was on the topic "Fluid Power Applications" by L&T Construction, miniBooster, Eaton, BEML and Neilsoft.

The third session on the following day was focused on "Hydraulic System Design" where the keynote paper was from Renishaw Metrology. The session saw many new technologies for hydraulic system design from ExxonMobil, Wipro Infrastructure, BEML and Argo-Hytos.

The last session on "Validation and Reliability" explained with reference to many new tools and technologies from Dynamatic Technologies, Famic Technologies, Siemens, IIT Madras and Tata Power SED.

Fluid Power Professionals' Day 2019
June 19 was celebrated as Fluid Power Professionals' Day worldwide commemorating the birthday of Blaise Pascal who was considered as the Father of Fluid Power. On this occasion, eminent personalities who have contributed to fluid power in India felicitated. Over 60 delegates including industry stalwarts and multitude of FPSI members attended this program.

GL Sodha of Preac Fluid Power, Bengaluru and Prahalad V Dabholkar of Tucson Hydrocontrols were honoured with Pascal Award 2019 for their outstanding and sustained contribution to the spread of fluid power technology in India. Dr BV Ravishankar, Principal, BMS College of Engineering, Bengaluru was the Chief Guest for the event, who also delivered the keynote address.

On this occasion, FPSI conducted a competition in which students submitted an exciting fluid power project undertaken by FPSI Student Chapter's college. FPSI received six short-term projects and shortlisted four.

Training Program
FPSI conducted a half-day training program on fluid power application and its technology on June 20, 2019 at the Mechanical Engineering Seminar Hall, BMS College of Engineering in Bengaluru. Dr Khalil conducted training program on the topics of Losses in Transmission Lines, Characteristics of Proportional Valves, and Physical Properties of Hydraulic Fluids.

Curriculum Interaction
The interactive session between representatives from academia and the FPSI set the tone on how to promote the importance of fluid power in universities. The overview for the need of such an interaction was given by Dr S Prasanna Kumar, Advisor, FPSI. He emphasised that in the present scenario of mismatch between graduated students and job availability, the syllabi for electives like fluid power has to be redrawn to give better acceptability by the industry, which may improve placement ratio.

Dr Singaperumal (IIT Chennai) who is on the Advisory Board of FPSI gave a detailed status report of the fluid power curriculum in Indian universities. Dr Khalil presented the details of the curriculum as well as laboratory set up to pursue the fluid power courses. He emphasised on the training of the instructors as the first step, followed by hands on experiments in the laboratory and then taking up assignments from industries.