Founded by Sandeep Parira and Prateek Shukla in September 2017, Altorum Leren is an IoT company offering technology innovations and cloud-based automation solutions to clients. The organisation specialises in developing concepts and systems that, in turn, help companies to gain more market share and achieve enhanced profitability.
Altorum Leren is a “Product startup” that offers a constellation of services to small, mid-sized, and large companies across businesses and industries. Prominent among these services are solutions that help companies to monitor the health of their assets and automating the operations of manufacturing plants. Mr. Birendar Choudhary, Chief Technology Officer, Altorum Leren in a discussion with CXOToday shares about the journey of Altorum Leren, the products, processes and services.
Q1 What technical feature was revolutionary in Altorum Leren?
Ans – In a typical manufacturing industry, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) play an extremely important role in streamline operations and production processes. PLCs are industrial computers which control the various electro-mechanical process in the manufacturing plants and help the unit to operate at a desirable rate of efficiency. Most companies in the manufacturing industry such as Mitsubishi, Siemens, and Rockwell have installed their own PLCs with each organization using their own communication protocols to collect the data for analysis purposes.
However, one of the critical issues that have kept PLCs from realising their full potential is the lack of communication outside their own networks. Altorum Leren has solved this problem by developing a generic framework which allows PLCs of different makes to communicate with each other. This, in turn, facilitates these PLCs to read and write through the company’s framework and collect data from different devices for further analysis and enhancing their efficiency through artificial intelligence (AI). This capability of facilitating the communication between PLCs of different companies is proving a game-changer for the manufacturing industry by becoming instrumental in enhancing the efficiency multiple times the original value.
Q2 How has IoT helped in the modern requirements of your clients?
Ans – IoT is all about the collection of data and using the same for advanced analytics and AI for extracting the information out of the data. Post pandemic, industries have realised the importance of remote controlling their plants and also predictive & preventive maintenance has become one of the major modern requirements of our clients. In order to accomplish all these things, it is extremely important for us not only to access reliable data but also ability to analyse and extract information from it.
IoT is becoming instrumental in revolutionising the efficiency and effectiveness of our clients, especially when it comes to delivering a superior customer experience. This has specifically become more prominent in the face of changing business requirements and fast depleting customer loyalty. By collecting reliable data, analysing it with the help of AI, and then taking business decisions based on the information derived from the first two steps, our clients are realising their ambitious targets on crucial parameters of performance including market share, profitability, and margin among others.
Q3 What are the challenges faced to implement this technology?
Ans – Making any kind of transition is a challenging process. More so in the case of the manufacturing industry as resources are constricted and it’s quite difficult to integrate the data from multiple layers of electro-mechanical processes. The primary challenges that we often face while implementing this technology belong to two different categories: a) integrating the existing automation of the plant with IoT devices to collect the data, and b) taking this data to the cloud for processing it further to extract information.
The first challenge is quite a task as different levels of the automation levels mandates customised planning for the integration of IoT devices. The requirement of these devices is even more crucial in the case the level of automation is low. As far as the second challenge is concerned, organisations need to buy a space in the cloud for facilitating the data transfer and processing it for extracting the information. There are other minor issues too that arises once the implementation of this technology starts although, in view of the benefits that can be realised, all the investment made by the company is worth it.
Q4 What is the percentage of growth that you have seen?
Ans – The overall rate with which the industry is going is simply impressive. We are very happy with our current state of progress and fully confident that this momentum will remain intact in the years to come. As far as the current growth rate is concerned, we have realised 27.1% of growth and this number is expected to shoot up further in the coming year. The reason behind this optimism is the increasing awareness in the manufacturing industry that a higher level of integration achieved by installing IoT devices can yield enormous benefits for the companies and help them to enhance their profitability in the long run.
Q5 What are the leading trends that supported your growth?
Ans – All the new age technologies such as the likes of AI, Blockchain, Advanced Analytics, and Data Lake are proving instrumental in supporting the growth of integration technologies with the help of IoT devices. In addition to fuelling the growth of the segment, these innovations are also ensuring that the overall competitiveness of the industry grows manifold. In addition, the holistic and all-encompassing benefits offered by these technologies to all stakeholders in the value chain is another significant factor that is helping these advancements to find favour with target audiences.
Q6 Can you explain the growth in terms of Business overall and the number of new players individually in the industry?
Ans – We have seen a good amount of growth in terms of Business. The industries are more inclined toward gathering data for improving their efficiency. We have been able to acquire a good number of customers in the last 12 months and the trend seems to be promising for us as we are able to solve complex problems using our platform Alfinity. We are also fully cognizant of the fact that in a country like India, the competitive intensity is always going to be on the higher side. Like other businesses, in our business, too, there is cut-throat competition with rivals fiercely fighting for each and every client across the industries. However, the highest level of customer orientation and quick service and recovery mechanism are some of the distinctive competencies that keep us ahead of the competition.
