Proudly Made In India - Without the Swadeshi Bullc**p

Proudly Made In India - Without the Swadeshi Bullc**p

5 GOOD REASONS

My company, Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd., makes, among other things, Prosthetics and Orthotics. Some frequent questions that potential customers ask me are;
"Why should I buy your product, when I can buy the Chinese product cheaper?"
or
"If I need top Quality why should I buy from Ushtara and not this German Company?"
or
"What advantage does buying from Ushtara offer me over buying from an importer of Chinese products?"

This is my attempt at giving you 5 reasons to buy from an Indian Company, especially one like Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd. 

5 GOOD REASONS. Not some meaningless Gandhian-Ideological mumbo-jumbo like "be Indian buy Indian"

But first; a little competition analysis,

THE COMPETITION

We are competing in our mobility related endeavors with two types of manufacturers.

On the one hand, we compete with  giant European and American firms like Ottobock and Ossur, some of them a century or more old.

On the other hand there are literally hundreds of Chinese manufacturers, like these guys and these guys, offering products of widely differing quality and price.

There are also others in this sector, like the state owned Artificial Limb Manufacturing Corporation of India and the Jaipur Foot Organization, but their products are either heavily subsidized or donated, so technically we are not competing with them.

A CASE STUDY

This is the Prosthetic Polycentric Knee that we manufacture;

It's called the XR2501. The Maximum Retail Price is INR 28,500.  A comparable Chinese product costs INR 4,000 Ex-Shanghai and retails for about INR 6,500 in India. A German or American product with similar functionality costs INR 70,000 in India. 

SO WHY BUY FROM USHTARA?

Here as promised are 5 good reasons;

1. COST 

Typically my customer, who buys the product from Ushtara, is not the end user. Rather my customer is the organization or technician who fits the prosthetic to the user.

Here are some of the costs you will incur if you buy a foreign product albeit one with a cheaper retail price;

i) Inventory costs:
The price quoted by many foreign companies especially Chinese companies, is for a certain Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ), which means that you probably have to buy more pieces of product than you have current orders for.

Because it takes 20 days to 6 weeks to ship to India from Europe / America / China. You are going to have to predict your demand at least that much in advance.

If you make a decision to buy from Ushtara, you have a lead time of only 3 working days on small orders.

ii) Quality Costs:
If you end up with a defective Chinese product, at best, they will replace it for you and you will have to bear the shipping and the cost of the additional time. At worst, you will have to absorb the entire acquisition cost.

As for the dent in your credibility...that's a cost few could carry.

Ushtara will replace defective products in 3 working days.

2. Accountability

i) A common legal framework:
How do you take legal action against a foreign supplier who reneges on his promise? Is it even worth the trouble?

Because Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd., is a Company registered and located in India, we are subject to Indian Laws and Jurisdiction. Our contract with you says as much.

ii) A common ecosystem:
Ottobock supplies millions of components to the whole world. Chinese companies are powerhouses of cheap manufacturing. Compared to their total sales, your purchase is peanuts.

Because Ushtara works in a common ecosystem with you. We care about what you think. Your opinion has a direct impact on our future revenues.

iii) Common standards:
With every purchase that you make from Ushtara, we will supply you material chemistry, mechanical properties and dimensional inspection reports. These reports are clearly traceable to relevant Indian standards.

Do you even know what Chinese standards look like? here's a clue; they're in Chinese.

3. Indian Solutions to Indian Problems

i) Environment:
The story goes, that the Indian army bought a whole bunch of BMP troop carriers from Russia in the late 1980s. 

But when they were testing them in the deserts of Rajasthan the air conditioner came on and started blowing warm air into the troop compartment. Because that's what the Russians needed on the Siberian Steppe!

Here's how we solved a uniquely Indian problem with German Technology

German prosthetics don't use these bushings, because most places in Germany are not dusty.  Also Norwegian amputees don't go around planting saplings in the paddy field. Indian amputees do.

As a side note; the Chinese products have hardened steel bushings instead. Guess how long they took to rust in the torpid humidity of Chennai ... Wait for it...4 HOURS!

ii) Usage:
I am Indian, our engineers are Indian, our machines are Indian and most importantly our technology is Indian.

So what does this mean for you?
Here's an Indian solution to an Indian problem,

No European or American Product has the range of motion of the Ushtara XR2501. That's because Indians squat. The French don't.

4. Accessibility:

If you have a problem with you Samsung TV, can you call Lee Byung-chul? No way! You get an irritating phone message that says " For registering your product press 1..."

Simply put, I head Ushtara Engineering private limited. And you can talk to me about problems or suggestions regarding our products DIRECT!

I speak English, Hindi, Tamil and  Kannada fluently and Punjabi, Bengali and Telugu badly.

Don't believe me;

Here's my number : +91 99020 00483
Here's my email: sunil@ushtara.com
Here's our physical address:
Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd.
No.9, Kempaiah Garden
14th Cross, Peenya Industrial Area
Bangalore - 560058

Contact me and I WILL respond, promptly and courteously!

5. Flexibility:

i) Scale:
Need just one component or sub-assembly? We'll give you just one.

Need  to borrow the knee to run a few tests? We'll gladly lend it to you for a month.

Need urgent supplies to cater to a recent natural calamity? We'll scale up with you .

We're flexible that way. We're Indian you see. Swalpa Adjust Maadi!

Try getting Ossur to respond to your time varying needs like that. Different story.

ii) Design:
Christian Medical College, Vellore, a customer of ours needed an extra long Pylon to meet the needs of an exceptionally tall individual.

Our response time: 1 working day.

Agreed, that was a fairly simple request, but the fact is we're willing to make design and manufacturing changes to meet your every need.

There you have it. 5 good reasons and 10 sub-reasons to buy Indian!

Engine Tale. Part 4: Two Camels and An Engine

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This is Ajay Fernandes.Ajay's primary job at Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd., is to see that the company always has enough cash to continue its activities. Cash, after all, is to a business, what blood is to the human body. Too much is as bad as too little. Too fast is as bad as too slow. 

To perform his role well, Ajay has to be like a camel, storing up resources when times are good and releasing them when they are required. 

It is perhaps our common obsession with frugality and being prepared for downturns that led Ajay and I to name our company Ushtara. Ushtara or ऊष्ट्र, is the Sanskrit word for a camel. and if you look carefully at our logo,  

You can see the Camel nestling there, proud, observant, stoic.
Ajay can be reached at ajay@ushtara.com +91 98450 07177

Back to the engine story

In part 3 of the engine tale, I talked about the challenges we faced developing a good casting for the cylinder.

We had to modify the pattern, to a dump core box in order to avoid problems with flash and core shift.

The guys at Ashoka Bearing, closed the mold with adhesive at the mating surfaces;

packed green sand around it to resist the forces of the molten Alloy;

and poured the molten metal

our fingers were crossed so hard, they hurt a little

SUCCESS!!...well mostly

As we anticipated, the dump core box solved most of our problems. Here is the cylinder as it came out of the mold.

Here's out it looked after it was shot blasted and cleaned up

Once the runners, gates and risers were cut off, it started looking a lot like a cylinder

Although not perfect, (it still had a little bit of gas entrapment and shrinkage porosity) it was good enough to make a running engine from and prove in reality what we had hitherto only done on paper.

Piece of Cake

Now, we were back on familiar territory. Machining is what we do day in and day out, so no challenges there.

We had already prepared complete drawings for the cylinder

We started by creating a datum surface on the cylinder top face. This would act as a reference for all the other machining surfaces. We clamped the raw casting on the CNC vertical machining center and machined the datum.

We also rough bored the cylinder.

Then we put the cylinder upside down on the VMC and machined the lower deck. This is the surface that would be in contact with the crankcase. We also machined the spigot and mounting holes in  the same setup and machined the bore to finish size, with only 0.05mm stock for honing.

A small but important operation performed on all modern engine cylinder bores is Honing. Honing makes the bore very very round and cylindrical. This means that the piston will have an easier time going up and down.

As an additional benefit, honing leaves a cross hatch pattern on the bore, which retains lubrication oil, which reduces friction and increases the life of the cylinder and piston rings.

Because we don't have a honing machine, we got the honing done  at an engine rebuilding shop in Yeswantpur, called Akbar Lathe Works.

WARNING!!! Turn down your volume

We assembled the cylinder on to the crankcase.

A few hearty kicks and the engine burst into sputtering life!!

We're going to take a slight break from the mechanicals and develop the magneto and electronics for the ignition system.

More on that in the next part...

Cast Iron Cylinder Rough boring

Cast Iron Cylinder Lower Deck

Cast Iron Cylinder Datum machining

Engine Tale. Part 3: Abir Ghosh and the Cylinder Saga

This is Abir Ghosh

Abir is in-charge of making sure thatUshtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd., produces good quality parts on time.

Like everybody else at Ushtara, even though his job profile sounds like a desk job, Abir is not above rolling up his sleeves and manning the machines, inspecting 2000 parts in one shot or removing burr from errant parts. He is good at data analysis, process design, CAD and CAM.

Abir's efforts at streamlining production and HR have created the available time and resources which we are now re-allocating to R&D
Abir can be reached at production@ushtara.com, +91 8431473438

Back to Engine Story. The story began in Part 1 and  continued in Part 2 and these are the events as they unfolded since.

Before we begin the narration...

A HISTORY LESSON

The first two-stroke engine was invented and patented by Scottish Engineer Sir Dugald Clerk in 1881, but the engine he invented had a separate charging pump to bring in the fresh air-fuel mixture. It was Englishman Joseph Day who realized that the crankcase  of the engine could itself be used as a charging pump. 

The kind of engine these guys used is  called a cross flow scavenged engine.

The problem with this kind of engine is that it leads to a really weird piston shape and therefore a not very efficient combustion chamber geometry. The large mass on top of the piston also causes other problems like heat dissipation problems and difficult-to-balance engine.

This German dude Dr. Ing. Adolf Schnuerle realized that by having at least 2 transfer ports and by angling them just right, the shape of the piston could be optimized for better combustion chamber geometry. This type of engine is therefore called a Schnuerle ported or loop scavenged 2 stroke engine.

There's a pretty cool animation on this page, about how a loop scavenged engine functions.

Almost every small 2-stroke engine  being manufactured today, uses some form of loop scavenging. The two stroke engine has no valves and  the flow of gases into and out of the combustion chamber is controlled by ports and their interaction with the piston. This makes the cylinder, arguably, the most complex and the most vital component of the whole engine.

WHAT SHALL WE MAKE THE CYLINDER OUT OF?The earliest  cylinders were made of cast iron. Many, especially in developing countries, still are. Cast iron is a high carbon alloy with good machining and wear properties. It is however heavy and more difficult to cast. It is also not as good as aluminum alloys at heat dissipation. 

In the last three to four decades, engine designers have been gravitating towards the use of various aluminum alloys for cylinder manufacturing. Although aluminum is light weight, easier to cast and has better heat dissipation properties, it is not without flaws. The biggest drawback of aluminum is that being a soft material, it has really poor wear resistance.

Engineers have come up with lots of ways to overcome or circumvent the poor wear resistance properties of aluminum, including, having a cast iron sleeve, coating the bore with various materials like Nikasil and using high silicon content alloys which are are then etched.

We decided that we would make four types of cylinders and offer them all to customers. The market would then decide which we should keep and which we should discard. 

1. Cast iron cylinders
2. Aluminum cylinders with inserted cast iron sleeves
3. Aluminum cylinders with hard chrome plated bores
4. Aluminum cylinders with Nikasil or similar plating on the bores

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PATTERN MAKINGOnce we had designed the cylinder, and verified its geometry, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics and strength, 

We added machining stock and tapers and got some patterns and core boxes made by Bhaskar Patterns, Jalahalli. Pradeep the proprietor is a highly competent pattern maker and an imaginative artist in one.

For the uninitiated, patterns are objects in the shape of the part. You mold the sand to the shape of the pattern before pouring liquid metal into it.

Cores are sand forms in the shape of the Empty Spaces in the casting. When you pour liquid metal into the sand mold, the cores occupy the places that the metal  shouldn't flow into.

So a core box is a  form whose cavities, when filled with sand, impart to the sand the shape of the hollows in the casting. Boy that was convoluted! 

Anyway, that's why a pattern maker has to be a bit of an artist because he has to imagine the shape of the negative spaces.

A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE
The following Saturday, we took the patterns to New Sun Foundry, Yeshwantpur to get some cast iron castings poured. The manager assured us that the castings would be ready by the following Monday.

When we arrived at the foundry on Monday, we found that not only were the castings not ready, the patterns had been allowed to lie in the sun and rain outdoors over the weekend!!!

Because we were committed to getting the castings from them, and pursuant to their assurances, we accepted their word, that they would finish the castings the following day.

When we arrived on Tuesday after noon at the foundry, we found that they had been unable to make satisfactory sand molds. The fins in mold were only partially formed and the center core was misshapen.

They had also damaged our patterns due to careless handling and misplaced one of the core boxes!

It took them about 20 minutes to find the missing core box from the big messy heap of finished parts, patterns, raw materials and scrap that is their foundry.

We hastily took back our patterns and core boxes from New Sun Foundry, vowing never to return and took them to Pradeep for repairs.

Still recovering from our negative experience at New Sun Foundry, we decided to make an aluminum casting so we took the patterns and core boxes to Varsha Castings, Peenya and got them poured.

GOSHDARN AND DAGNABBIT!

Core shift!!!
One of the transfer cores had floated away with the molten aluminum

See how there's a thin rib on one side of the bore, that's not supposed to be there, see the rendering above.

We decided to learn even from this failure and section the casting;
Varsha Castings made another casting for us. This time without any core shifts.

But it was not with defects. There were small blow holes in the bore and other critical areas.

CAST IRON WOES AND LEARNINGS
Ashoka Bearing Housings Pvt. Ltd., is primarily a manufacturer of Cast Iron bearing housings, also known as plummer blocks or pillow blocks. Because the mass produce these Bearing Housings, they have an in-house foundry where they pour high grade cast iron.

My first impression of this foundry was one of cleanliness, competence and good old fashioned work ethic. What a difference from New Sun Foundry!!

Unfortunately, they were unable to make the sand mold, to the admittedly complex pattern. After two attempts, they gave up.

We asked the owner if he would pour the cast iron into a mold made at Varsha Castings and he said he would.

Bhaskara, the molding expert at Varsha casting made the mold in two halves.
They were assembled with the cores that the guys at Ashoka Bearing Housing made

The cast iron was then poured into the assembly and...

MOLD LEAK!!!The the upper mold half, which would have worked perfectly with aluminum, had literally floated on the denser molten iron alloy.

We tried again. This time we brought Bhaskara from Varsha Casting over to Ashoka Bearing Housing, to make a bigger, heavier mold using their own flasks;
and...

!@##$ COLD SHUTS AND  &^%$#@ JOINT FLASH!!!Cold shuts occur when some of the metal solidifies before the mold is completely filled, not allowing further molten metal to enter. This could happen because the runners and gates were not well designed or because the pouring rate was sub-optimal. Cold shuts cause the casting to lose integrity and break. 

Joint flash occurs when mating faces of the two halves of the mold are not well matched, allowing some metal  to leak between them.

Back to the drawing board.

We had to find a process which was not as dependent on the skill of the person making the mold or the one pouring. A process which would be repeatable.

So we made Dump Core Boxes

These dump core boxes already have well designed runners, riser, well and pouring basin built in. 

We used the dump core boxes to make the molds and assembled them with the cores.

So what happened next?
Did we fail again?
Did we succeed in making a good casting?

Find out in Part 4