Optiplan GmbH, Germany, is one of the leading manufacturers of glass fibre reinforced plastics (GRP) in sheet or coil form. For well over 50 years our POLYDET brand has been the synonym for quality, reliability and innovation worldwide. The company is actively following the developments in the Indian market. Mr. Robert Garbe, Associate Sales Director, shares his observations.
Excerpts:
Please share some background info on Optiplan and its product range.
Optiplan is a manufacturer of premium GRP/fiberglass flat sheets. Our facesheet products are designed and engineered for reefer-truck sidewall-roof-bulkhead, and flooring composite sandwich-panels. Optionally to be reinforced with high-impact glass woven roving.
• Gelcoat coating to enhance surface sealing, UV resistance, hygiene-properties
• Food safety guaranteed
• Benefits over metallic face sheets such as steel, mild steel:
• No corrosion • Easy reparability • Robust • Lighter in weight • Easy to process • Thermal conductivity 200 times lower
Optiplan just recently commissioned a new, state of the art, large volume continuous production line to cater for increased demand of our global customer base as well as from new markets.
In total we have 4 fully automated production lines at our site in Germany, manufacturing a large variety of different products for different applications.
We supply customers on all continents with premium quality German made products.
More multimillion Euro investments are in the pipeline to emphasize Optiplan’s position as one of the leading GRP flatsheet manufacturers in the world.
Your observations on unorganised vs. organised sector in markets like India?
When approaching potential users of our products we discuss in detail different ways and options, employing GRP. Having longtime experience in many different markets around the world, we are more than aware of the challenges and can offer technical assistance and solutions for setting up panel-manufacturing facilities according to requirements and capabilities of the individual potential customer.
How do you engage with customers in their body-building activity? What do you see as growth drivers for reefers in the Indian market?
We continue to provide our customers with technical support either direct or liaising with industry experts for particular questions. We are ISO accredited for well over 10 years, product quality and product consistency is of paramount importance to us and basis of our reputation built in over 60 years of company history in this field.
We provide all commonly acknowledged certificates along with our products.
Drivers to enhance and streamline the local Indian cold-chain-infrastructure will in our view be initially larger food distributors, retailers, fast-food chains, large scale food-processors, etc., which are particularly sensitive and dependent on a reliable logistics infrastructure and consistency in terms of timing and product-quality.
Your comments on reefer semi-trailers for long haul and International logistics trends?
General trends go for light-weight solutions to reduce operating costs by saving fuel and maintenance expenses, also to cater for electric vehicles. The usage of composite material solutions will play an important part also in the sector of commercial vehicle manufacturing and Optiplan is at the forefront of providing innovative products and solutions in their field.
In Europe weight-saving is one of the prominent topics as well as longer units (up to 25m length) for long-haul applications are being tested on the roads. For the latter, we don’t see this happening in India in short-term.