Fire and Safety Community Interview – May 2019

             

          Mr. Kiran Rane                          Mr. Abhishek Bagwe

Mr. Kiran Rane & Mr. Abhishek Bagwe

Published on: 21-May-2019, 06:06 PM

ABOUT FIRETECH:

FIRETECH is a leading fire suppression equipment manufacturer based out of Mumbai, India. The company manufactures of firefighting equipment for Oil and Gas, Chemical, Pharmaceuticals sectors and other industrial applications. Mr. Kiran Rane is the Director of the company and has close to 20 years of experience in firefighting domain. Mr. Abhishek Bagwe is the CEO of FIRETECH and has more than 10 years of industry and consulting experience.

Q: Kindly tell me about the brief history of your esteemed organization?

Mr. Kiran Rane (KMR): Established in the year 1994, FIRETECHTM is an industry leader in firefighting and suppression systems domain. Today, the company stands tall with more than 25 years’ experience in designing, engineering and manufacturing of fire suppression solutions.

Our founder Mr. M P Rane was the pioneer of foam based fire suppression system in India. Though over the years, we have extended our capabilities in water and dry chemical fire suppression systems, we still maintain our stronghold in foam systems.

Mr. Abhishek Bagwe (AB): We set-up a production plant in Chiplun (Western Maharashtra), approximately 250 km from Mumbai in 1995. We have been upgrading and modernizing our plant in line with technology evolution. Today, our plant is equipped to produce world-class products and conduct product testing as per any national and international codes and standards.

Q: “FIRETECH” has remained a very prominent stakeholder of Indian fire fraternity & known for providing effective fire safety solutions. What are your flagship products?

KMR: We have an entire range of products for protection against all types of fire hazards. Our key product line is UL listed to ensure quality and performance. We have been protecting critical infrastructure assets like Oil & Gas refineries and terminals, Ports, Power Plants, Industrial Plants, Warehouses etc.

Our product range comprise of 3 type of equipment –

1. Foam suppression system – These systems use foam for fire suppression. Foam system is used for fire protection of chemicals that are lighter than water e.g. crude oil, petrol etc. FIRETECH has a complete range UL listed products in this category including bladder tanks, Inline balanced pressure foam proportioner, Inline inductor, Medium and high expansion foam generators etc.

2. Water suppression system – These systems use plain water for firefighting. Our main products in this category are water monitor, revolving head, water curtain nozzle, Medium and high velocity water spray nozzle, jumbo curtain nozzles.

3. Dry Chemical Powder (DCP) system – FIRETECH also manufactures DCP tanks and special purpose discharge devices for DCP system.

Apart from this, FIRETECH stands for Engineering excellence. We design and engineer customized solutions to meet our customers’ requirements.

AB: FIRETECH has been a part of some of the flagship projects undertaken by Government of India. We have supported in development of foam protection system for India’s first indigenously developed nuclear sub-marine – Arihant. We have also supplied foam system for one of the India’s high-altitude fighter plane hangars in J&K.

Q: Any new launch?

KMR: We have very formidable product line as of now, but we recognize future belongs to companies which continuously evolve. We already have UL listed foam equipment. We are currently working on extending our portfolio along the same lines. Apart from this, we have also initiated value engineering for a couple our products to modernize the design and improve performance. We plan to launch them in a quarter.

We are also targeting newer markets and customer segments across the globe. Our sales team is undertaking a market study to develop products specifically focusing on select markets.

Q: Which other countries you are exporting?

AB: Today, FIRETECH has been associated with more than 600 clients across India and world. We routinely export to UAE and other Middle Eastern countries along with South East Asian markets. Through our channel partners, we are reaching out to UK, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria, Tanzania, Vietnam etc.

KMR: We can proudly claim to reach more than 25 countriestoday. We firmly believe in ‘Make in India’ and we want FIRETECH to be a leading example of this initiative. We are pleased to state our products are ‘Proudly Made in India for the world markets’.

Q: What are the main attribute and philosophy of your company?

KMR: We strongly believe in exceeding customer expectations. All the work we have undertaken in last 25 years, is testimony to saying, ‘talk less do more’ and we continue to do so.

Our path has been guided by a set of values defined by our founder and entire FIRETECH family. Our values are – Quality, Innovation, Responsibility and Customer Delight

Q: What prospects of Indian fire industry you see in coming 5 years?

AB: Indian Fire Industry is well poise for rapid growth over next 5 years. We believe factors like network expansion by oil marketing companies, refinery upgrade due to impending Bharat VI norms, proposed west coast refinery and increasing demand for less polluting natural gas will push domestic demand.

Simultaneously, global crude price recovery, continued increase in demand for chemicals and petrochemicals, competitiveness of Indian products will keep export demand high.

KMR: All in all, India fire industry is looking at tremendous growth opportunity. It is up to us, Indian manufacturers to tap these markets by supplying high quality products on time and at competitive prices.

We at FIRETECH, are making ourselves ready for this by investing into technology, R&D and most importantly our people.

Q: What impact GST system implementation has casted on the industry?

KMR: Frankly, we are very happy with GST implementation. It has put stop to all the malpractices prevailing in the market. GST has made taxation very simple. We get to know who has not paid the tax online and we can immediately take action.

Yes, there still are some hiccups but then which change ever happens without such small issues. We are sure that over the period these issues will be addressed.