Research & Development of Balmer Lawrie

Balmer Lawrie prides on its Research and Development (R&D) initiatives being driven by two of its R&D centres - Application Research Development (ARL) dedicated to new product developments of SBU: Greases & Lubricants and Product Development Centre (PDC) for SBU: Chemicals. Both these R&D centres are recognised by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Balmer Lawrie is a pioneer of grease manufacturing in India and has successfully used indigenous technology to develop various products.

The R&D teams continuously innovate to provide sustainable products and services to our customers. Balmer Lawrie has over the years adopted technologies for automation of processes, enhance speed and efficiency in systems and processes, reduce usage and wastage of energy, faster analysis and decision making etc., thereby enabling the Company to service its customers better. Apart from regular process and manufacturing related technology interventions, the R&D centers of our Company are constantly monitoring the changing trends in technology and needs of customers and are developing cost effective products using more environment friendly raw materials.

Greases & Lubricants
Applications Research Laboratory (ARL)

The R&D Centre of SBU: Greases & Lubricants, named as Applications Research Laboratory is located at Kolkata and was established in 1981. It is well equipped with state-of-the-art test rigs / instruments and backed by highly qualified scientists and engineers.

The modernised R&D centre and the R&D efforts are being directed towards maintaining technological and cost leadership which leads to customer satisfaction through:

Continuous upgradation of the products and processes in tune with the technological advancement to reduce cost of production and to deliver enhanced product performance.
Development of new high performance and speciality greases and lubricants with a thrust on lubricants for automotive sector.
Emphasis on products specific to both industrial and automotive OEMs.
Thrust on environment friendly, bio-degradable and energy efficient nano lubricants for future market requirements.
Introduction of new cost effective grease as an alternative replacement of most popular high performance lithium grease due to fluctuating prices of lithium hydroxide.

R&D efforts in lubricants has helped the Company to increase the business horizon by expanding the product basket with high performance niche lubricants for automotive and industrial applications. Quite a few new products have been introduced into the product range of metal working fluids and rust preventive oils. Products and processes developed through in-house R&D have been internally absorbed by the manufacturing units for commercialization. ARL has fifteen patents to its credit and many research papers were presented in Conferences.

Chemicals – Product Development Centre

The Product Development Centre at Manali, Chennai is dedicated for the Research and Development of Chemicals catering to Leather, Agro, Textile, Cleaning and Paper chemical segments.

The R&D team of outstanding and experienced scientists and qualified personnel work constantly to fulfil customer needs. One of our key strategies is to continuously develop sustainable products which comply to REACH (Registration Evaluation and Authorisation of chemicals) norms of Europe.

The continuous collaboration with various institutes and technocrats has made it possible to develop solutions as per customer requirements using the expert knowledge from IIT, ICT and IICT.

The R&D centre is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and instruments like HPLC, particle size analyser, GPC, UV-visible spectrophotometer, laser particle analyser and tensiometer for in-house development requirements. The laboratory is DSIR-certified. A total of seven Indian patents for products have been filed from this centre. Many technical papers have been published in international journals and have been presented in conferences.

In-house Technologies

The advancement in technologies for sulfosuccination and sulphitation of fatty alcohols and vegetable oil through hybrid sulphitation process have resulted in developing products with improvised performance in Fatliquor segment. It also made possible to develop several fatliquors as per the market requirements by suitably modifying the oil substrates.

Suitable modifications in Sulfochlorination process via series reaction has resulted in reduction of process cycle time and improved the reaction efficiency.

The emulsion polymerisation technique was standardised to cater to products for textile, leather and paper industry.

The in-house development of Bis-phenol free syntans will help in future to meet the REACH regulations.

The technology for leather finishing chemicals like water and solvent-based lacquers, penetrator, feel modifiers, pullup oil, white pigment, compact binders, acrylic binders, wax emulsion, protein binder was developed and commercialised by the R&D centre. This has significantly helped in improving our product basket and the brandname.

Investments in Technology

Major investments are being made in IT and technology, which supports not only the manufacturing businesses but also the service businesses. The Company is committed to adapt competitive and latest information technology solutions to enhance the business value and simplify business processes. ERP (SAP) is being used across SBUs and support functions. The Company has also invested heavily to implement security solutions to protect its applications and data from cyber-attacks.

In a constant endeavour to meet the business demands with technology solutions, Balmer Lawrie has always put the best efforts consistently and implemented apt technology solutions.

The Logistics Service business has been investing in technology for better customer satisfaction and experience. It has implemented customised IT solutions for real time tracking (domestic and ocean cargo) as well as integrated its system with Logistics Databank for tracking of all domestic movements. Keeping in line with the National Logistics Policy, the SBU has integrated its application with ULIP platform (Unified Logistics Interface Platform). The SBU has also automated airport operations by integrating its system with Airport Community System for export consignment.

IT solutions have also been implemented for SBU: Cold chain for automating warehouse and distribution operations for all its temperature controlled warehouses.

SBU: Logistics Infrastructure through its operation package Logstar has built in high degree of control with checks and balances to conduct its operations effectively and efficiently. Automation has also helped in seamless billing and efficient operation of the SBU. As part of PM Gati Shakti Movement, the systems have been integrated with Sagar Setu Application under Nation Logistics Policy. Continuous initiatives for advancement in technology has been initiated and the existing RFID tracking system has been augmented by using AI and OCR based smart yard solutions and smart gate operations for damage detection and three dimensional accuracy of the containers. Tracking of containers between Port – CFS – Port has also been implemented.

Investments have also been made in technology in the Travel & Vacations business. Balmer Lawrie caters to a large number of institutional and retail customers, round the clock through its B2C portal www.vacationsexotica.com for ticketing (domestic and international), visa, insurance, hotels and other services. Balmer Lawrie's flight booking portal govemp.balmerlawrietravelapp.com provides negotiated fares with benefits for all Govt. employees and their family members.