by M.K . Prabhakar & Mohan raj
Automation seems to be the catch phrase in the textile industry right now. Coimbatore based Cruzoe Innotek has carved a niche for itself with quality intelligent automation solutions in a relatively short span of time. The company launched its intelligent automatic transport system for Cones – ConeFlo, at Texfair 2024.
We met the duo of Luis Cruz, Director and Lucas Cruz, Managing Director, of the company and got to know more about the company’s product line and what makes them different from others.
Beginning the interaction with an introduction of the company, Luiz Cruz said, “Cruzoe Innotek was established in 2019. We started with our iABTS – Bobbin Transport System with three variants and further added the Fully Automatic Roving Stripper and Roving Bobbin Exchanger. At Texfair 2024 we are launching our latest product ConeFlo – An Intelligent Automatic Transport System for Cones/Cheese. This is the first time that we are participating in Texfair.”
Pointing to the live demonstration at the company’s stall, Lucas Cruz mentioned, “A lot of R&D has gone behind our intelligent automatic cone transport system. You can find loading, unloading, assembling and palletizing mechanisms in the system. Another important feature is weighing on the fly i.e., during the transport itself, it will weigh the cones and you can fix the limits where the outliers will be segregated from the system.”
“Moreover, this system features a unique Ai based vision inspection system – SpotCone PRO which inspects the cone under UV light and White light. Unlike similar systems in the market which capture the image and then compare it with certain previously captured images, this a true Ai based system, which will continuously analyze the defects of the cones and decide subjectively. Initially the system will learn itself over a period of 3 to 4 days and set its own defect standards. The intelligent system will then advise the customer on which defects to accept and which ones to reject in the future. It offers a complete guided system for the customer” he added.
The company offers three variants of BTS namely (1) iABTS – Intelligent Automatic Bobbin Transport System, (2) BTS-Sm Smart Automatic Bobbin Transport System and (3) Semi-Automatic/Closed Loop BTS. “Each variant offers its own advantages. For example, the first variant is fully automated, while the Smart Automatic BTS variant offers very good power savings, while the Semi-Automatic variant is suited for fixed planned operations,” Luis Cruz explained.
Sound manufacturing infrastructure
The company has two manufacturing units located at Podanur and SIDCO in Coimbatore. “We have a solid background in electronics. I personally have 30 odd years of experience, having worked in MNCs and travelled abroad widely. We have all this experience going into our products. While we take care of the electronics part at our Podanur facility, the mechanical part and fabrication is done at our SIDCO unit. Our team consists of around 20 personnel for now,” Lucas Cruz elaborated.
Going into details regarding the key reasons that give Cruzoe Innotek its competitive edge, Lucas Cruz observed, “First and foremost we don’t sell our products off the shelf. We carefully study the customers’ application requirements, usage pattern and customize the design according to their needs. In many cases, customers buy similar products only to find out later on, that once they change the production pattern, they aren’t able to use the system. Our system is different in the sense that it can adjust to any changes in their production pattern. We also hand-hold the customer after the installation and educate them about the system thoroughly.”
What about the after sales service support? Responding to this question Lucas Cruz mentioned, “Our systems can be connected to the internet. Remote trouble shooting is an integrated feature of our products. As mentioned earlier, the customer is also trained on the system. They can view the entire system’s function as a graphical view on the screen. Our system is designed in such a way that an unskilled person will be able to understand what is wrong with it and rectify the same in a matter of minutes. Remember, these systems have to run 24 X 7. During the night shift, skilled supervisors may not be available for immediate help. That is why we have designed the systems in such a way that even an unskilled operator can operate it with ease.”
Finally, throwing light on the company’s future plans, Luis Cruz mentioned, “We want to develop more automation systems for the textile industry. We want to develop products which will improve productivity and be economic to the customer.”