It is a rare moment of glory for a small forging company especially when the big daddy of forging technology like Bharat Forge comes visiting to take a look at what it has done. SB Engineers, a SME unit based in Bhosari MIDC Pune, has done something that the likes of Bharat Forge is impressed and other smaller units, too, are following suit.

SB Engineers, a small-scale forging unit run by CEO and founder Sunil Javalekar, has become a must-visit place on the itinerary of the Indian forging companies. Javalekar is giving lessons to forging companies on how to run their heating furnaces more efficiently and save energy in this energy guzzling but critical part of the forging process. For Javalekar, this is a reward for taking a huge risk a year ago and volunteering to try a new technology.

When the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and German Development agency, GIZ (Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit), and an insulation solutions company, KAEFER Punj Lloyd, were looking for a forging company that would let them demonstrate the new technology, they found no takers.

They were targeting the SME sector as it suffered from lower productivity, high use of old technologies resulting in lower energy efficiency and worst energy intensity. This was part of the Global Environmental Facility-World Bank project. Energy efficiency was not on anybody?s priority list and BEE failed to get anyone to pilot the project to demonstrate what difference improved insulation could make to the furnace. ?No other forging unit in the country was willing to do so even when it was to be done free of cost,? said Bhavesh Swami, manager with the BEE-GEF-World Bank programme. BEE tried in the north and failed.

According to the BEE-GIZ report, the forging cluster in Pune has 50 SME units and 20 heat treatment units. They consume 24,252 tonne of oil equivalent every year and few have upgraded their units. SB supplies gear box parts to Mahindra Gears & Transmission, Piaggio Vehicles, Bonfiglioli Transmissions, Atul Auto and RSB Transmissions and volunteered to carry out the pilot run.

?Earlier there was no need to do these things but now it has become so competitive, costs are going up and customers not willing to pay more so situation has forced us to think differently,? said Javalekar. Others did not come forward because nobody wanted to stop production or they wanted someone else to try it out first, said Javalekar.

SB Engineers had a box type furnace with a capacity of 0.7 tonne per batch and the furnace carried out processes like normalising, annealing and tempering after heating the material up to 940 degree celsius using CNG as fuel. The refractory lining on the walls of the furnace uses alumina brick. The high furnace surface temperature caused radiation losses and high amount of heat storage by the refractory material. To reduce these heat losses, the project team decided to opt for veneering technology or hot face insulation, which is an energy efficiency measure for heat treatment furnaces. Ceramic fibre modules were used for veneering. The technology team of GIZ and KAFEER took three days for the installation and the results were impressive

SB Engineers saw their fuel requirement during cold start reduce to 50% without any design or process modification, the time required to reach the desired temperature of 940 degree celsius was reduced from nine hours to four hours. The heat treatment process? fuel consumption came down by 8-10% and there was a reduction in the surface temperature from 120 degree celsius to 55 degree celsius thereby reducing radiation losses. This also enhanced production capacity due to reduction in cold start up time, enhanced refractory life and also improved working condition on the shop floor.

For SB Engineers, which operates 225 days, the payback time was achieved in six months.

This has made Javalekar a much sought after speaker at the forging industry forum and his SB Engineers a showcase for the industry to emulate. ?Normally technology transfers from small to large but in this case it is going from a small unit to bigger units and that is a big achievement,? Swami said.